


Just Like a Stranger With the Weeds In Your Heart

by MooseFeels



Series: the sun from shining [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (Viktor's bad boyfriends amirite), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anxiety, Hurt/Comfort, Omega! Viktor, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Slow Burn, alpha!yuuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-09-13 02:27:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 22,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9102418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: Viktor sees Yuuri and he knows, he knows, he knows.





	1. Chapter 1

Viktor’s not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t  _ this. _

Katsuki, who’s half naked and sweaty, pulls him in close and says, luridly, “Viktor! Be my coach!” 

And Viktor feels his heart leap into his throat at not only the suggestion, but also, at the scent of Yuuri. 

It’s like springtime. 

Everything is alive and active and bright, suddenly. The colors are brighter. The air is warmer. Viktor feels his heartbeat speed and all his blood flush to the surface of his skin, to his scalp, to his cheeks-- he feels his pupils dilate. Viktor feels everything change, to look at Katsuki Yuuri. 

Viktor feels winter part from him and spring arrive. He feels the trees green and the buds sprout and everything becoming awake. For the first time in so  _long_ , since his childhood, Viktor feels something in him that's green and new and joyful. 

Katsuki feels like joy. Drunk out of his skull, divorced from his anxiety, Katsuki feels like joy, and it's infectious. 

“Yes,” he says, with total finality. Katsuki could ask him to do anything, in this moment, and Viktor would do it. Viktor already has; he can feel his own sweat clinging to him from the dance they did earlier. 

Katsuki Yuuri, who placed  _ sixth _ at the final, who Viktor didn’t even recognize almost six hours ago, who nursed champagne all night until liquid courage replaced the shuddering nerves that drove him to flub almost every jump of the night-- Viktor looks at Katsuki Yuuri and he knows, with unsettling certainty, that not only is he an Alpha, he’s actually the love of his fucking life.

* * *

 

Going back home is weird.

Yuuri lived in Detroit for five years, went to college for all of them, and he hasn’t been in Japan for anything other than a competition in that time. English went from being overwhelming to familiar in his ears, and the sudden abundance of his natural language-- he can’t stop himself from reading  _ everything _ all the time, at once. From hearing, everything. He can’t really tune it out, he spent so long in Michigan searching for it in others. 

But Minako is the same. Haesetsu, excepting the terrible posters of him, is the same. Yu-topia is the same and his mother and father, a little smaller, a little greyer, are still basically the same. Mari, too. 

Yuuri sits in front of his dead dog and he feels the difference. He feels the sameness. 

Being home is weird.

He helps out around the inn. Cleans rooms and helps his mother cook and he--

He can’t stop moving, because stopping means thinking about what happened. His  _ failure _ .

Sometimes--

It happened a lot in America.  _ Forward _ people. 

“Fucking rude people,” Phichit had muttered under his breath once.

But even at home, Yuuri always gets a lot of questions about-- about who he  _ is. _

“Are you sure?” A few people at a bar had asked him once and the doctors always asked him (and sometimes even asked for bloodwork). 

But he is. And Yuuri knows, from how the failure burns, from how it leaves him heated and stinging, that he  _ is _ an alpha. It’s not just pain, it’s humiliation. It makes something in him feel awake and almost--

Yuuri’s not violent. 

Yuuri feels like destroying something, though. 

Yuuri cooks and he wallows, in his pain, and he avoids the ice, because the ice is at once home and Hell. The ice is at once as comforting as his mother's soft embrace and the punishing, cruel thing he's never quite good enough for. 

 Yuuri cooks and he eats (he eats, and he doesn’t feel guilty for it in the first time in years). Yuuri cooks and he doesn’t think about the future.

He’s not sure what scares him more-- going back to the ice or starting a life without it.

He’s home for three weeks when he finally pulls his skates from his bags and slouches from Yu-topia to the Ice Castle, and after friendly greetings from Yuuko (and meeting her three  _ kids _ ), he takes to the ice and--

The routine just flows out of him. 

Yuuri’s been cooking, but he also hasn’t been able to shake Viktor Nikiforov’s routine from his mind, even moreso than usual. 

He’s luminous, on the ice. He shines, he glows. He’s a diamond, drawing every light in the room into him, making it brighter. He’s the reason Yuuri kept up with skating, and even if not even being recognized by him after the final stung (wounded, humiliated, burned) him, Yuuri can’t shake his routines from under his skin. Yuuri has been so close to the starlight of Viktor Nikiforov, and he can't escape wanting to capture it; to steal it and shine himself.

Yuuri’s lived most of his professional life fighting to live under Viktor Nikiforov’s shadow. Silver (or even bronze) to his gold. Old habits are hard to break.

Yuuri skates Viktor’s routine, and it’s not until he hears the clapping that he realizes he’s not alone.

"Yuuri!" Yuuko exclaims, "oh, Yuuri, that was  _beatufiul!_ "

He feels himself blush, not just the rush of blood from exhaustion. "I didn't realize you were-- I'm sorry," he stammers.

"No, Yuuri, it was fantastic," she says. Three small heads nod aggressively beside him. 

It’s not until he sees the video that he realizes it was  _ recorded. _

 


	2. Chapter 2

Viktor’s been thinking that maybe, he was foolish.

It would not be the first time. Viktor has lived his life foolishly since he could remember. He’s loved foolishly, he’s thrown himself absolutely into a foolish art and molded his body foolishly into its image. Viktor has been a fool, and he’s been hurt before. 

And in the aftermath of the banquet, he’s been alternating nursing the hurt and consuming Katsuki’s entire career. 

He skates delicately, is what Viktor notices. It’s not that he skates like he doesn’t mean it, it’s that he skates like he is cutting paper. He skates preciously, not precisely or exactly, but like each movement is meaningful and significant. It’s something consistent across his routines, across the years of skating that Viktor can find online.  Intricate, serious footwork more indicative of women’s routines than men’s. His jumps are a mess, even when he lands them, he never quite  _ sticks _ them. Yuuri doesn’t sell his jumps they way his body sells a feeling; he’s not at home inside a jump. 

Viktor watches both his premieres. He watches his disastrous performance at the finals. He watches them all, over and over again, and he can’t help that uncomfortable desire, both to find him, to be with him, and also, to build for him something beautiful.

Viktor sees something in Katsuki that he can’t--

He doesn’t understand how other people don’t see it, too, and Viktor wants to make them see. 

Viktor feels something proud and strangely hormonal in himself when he thinks of Yuuri. 

Yuuri--  _ Katsuki _ who is his, if not yet. Katsuki, who makes something inside Viktor bloom. He wants them to look, and see. So Viktor begins to make notes, in a small composition book, on Yuuri’s successes and failures. He begins to design a program, to showcase Yuuri’s talents and also to  _ push _ him. Because Viktor knows--

He knows he can go farther. And Viktor knows (maybe a little selfishly) that if he could summon the courage to be there with him (to call, to show up, to make him want him the ways Viktor wants him), the two of them would be unstoppable.

But Viktor knows he's being foolish. If Katsuki had wanted something of him, he would have addressed him by now or said something or sent some kind of message. Maybe he thought Viktor wasn't being serious at the banquet. Maybe he thought Viktor was being  _too_ serious at the banquet and wanted something that wasn't available. Maybe Yuuri--  _Katsuki--_ knows and doesn't reciprocate. Maybe Viktor is being foolish. He's been foolish before. He was foolish in St. Petersburg, once (didn't leave his wife). He was foolish in London, once (a one night stand with not a whisper of a phone number). He was foolish in Los Angeles, once (abandoned him in the middle of heat, exhausted and unable to properly protest, much less argue). Viktor's been foolish before, wanted more when there was nothing there. 

Viktor's foolish, too easygoing with his love, and it's hurt him worse times than this. It's left him abandoned in hotel rooms and with a bruise across his face and with a shame of himself he cannot shake. Viktor's foolish, and he keeps thinking to himself that he's not obsessing and that he must be delusional to believe that he wasn't the only one to feel something that night. Viktor tells himself this hurts less, but it doesn't.

Viktor tells himself this hurts less, but it hurts more.

His phone vibrates beside him as he’s doing situps (today is crosstraining; off season means building and keeping muscle right now). Makkachin lays nearby, wagging his tail lazily. He’s been neglecting him, getting caught up in planning and watching that walks get pushed later and later in the day and distraction is the theme of their play together. Viktor feels bad, but he also can’t shake the compulsion. The need. 

Viktor finishes his set when he flicks his phone to life and--

_ Thought you might want to see _ , the text from Chris reads. Chris, who broke his heart but never with a suggestion of malice and who stuck around to become a friend after the fallout. 

And it’s Yuuri and he’s skating--

He’s skating Viktor’s routine from worlds. The one that took months, months of practice and years of training to accomplish. Record breaking in scoring and difficulty. Viktor’s routine. And he wears it better than Viktor ever had. 

Viktor sees him yearning, and that tremulous omega thing in him longs to chase, to find, to comfort. To pull him close into his safe arms and hold him, rock him. 

The routine, there’s no way this isn’t an invitation. 

Viktor watches the performance three more times before he starts making notes. He watches it five times after that just to see it again. He watches it on his walk with Makkachin, going slowly despite his dog’s best attempts to pull him into a full run. He watches it sitting on his couch, shoes still on, Makkachin's leash still in his hand. 

Viktor feels that spring feeling in himself again. 

Viktor starts throwing his clothes in a bag when he realizes that maybe he wasn’t foolish at all. 


	3. Chapter 3

Yuuri just lets his phone die and doesn’t check his social media or his email or anything. He can’t believe that it was recorded, and he can’t believe it was posted, and he can’t believe people are watching it. Watching  _ him _ . It pulls up something ugly in his chest that makes it hard to breathe. 

Yuuri just wanted something private, something of his own. He’s never liked being watched, and even though he’s so much more private than most of the people he knows, he still feels exposed at every angle. 

Yuuri’s tired.

But Yuuri also loves winter, this time of year. It’s mid-March-- it took him some time after graduation to pack up his life and say goodbye to everyone and to really make his decisions about leaving Celestino. Spring will come soon, but for now, the snow still falls. The air is still sharp and clear, the sky flat and grey. His breath curls out of his throat and hangs on the air in soft, bright clouds. He loves winter; he loves how everything looks different in the winter light, in the cold ice, in the snow. It induces strange, quiet change in the world, and it makes everything strangely restful. 

Yuuri looks out onto the grey winter sea and he takes a long, deep breath of the cold, salt air. 

Alone. 

Yuuri just wants to be alone to lick his wounds. 

He runs his hands through his hair and jogs back home. The days are growing longer after the solstice, but the sun is setting early still. It’s dark by the time he gets back to Yu-Topia, and he steps inside and his mother turns to him and says, “Oh! Yuuri! We have a new guest-- maybe one of your friends? He has such a friendly dog!”

And Yuuri can swear he sees a ghost when a large, brown poodle bounds around the corner and barks a couple times. Yuuri kneels down and lets the dog lick his face a few times before he checks the collar.

_ Makkachin _ .

Yuuri looks at it and--

And he looks back up at his mom and he tears from the front to the springs and--

Viktor Nikiforov is lounging in one of the springs. Viktor Nikiforov, with silver hair and blue eyes and his whole... _ everything _ is in Yu-Topia. He stands, and he’s not wearing anything. Viktor Nikiforov is  _ naked _ in Yuuri’s childhood home. Yuuri feels his blood freeze and  _ rush _ around inside him in a noxious, terrible circuit. 

“Why-- why are you  _ here _ ?” Yuuri asks, his voice barely audible to his own ears. 

“Yuuri!” He exclaims. “Starting today, I’m going to be your new  _ coach!  _ You’re going to get to the Grand Prix Final-- and you’re going to  _ win _ .”

And Yuuri feels his blood drop and panic sweep over him like a dark wave as he backs up, through the doorway and against the back wall. 

“I-- I--  _ what _ ?” he asks, his voice breaking. 

“Yes,” Viktor says, stepping out of the water. He pulls a towel from somewhere around himself and he smiles, and Yuuri feels more blind panic. “Starting today. We have much work to do, no?”

* * *

 

Yuuri seems different, is the first thought that Viktor has, seeing him, in the flesh for the first time since the banquet. 

Yu-Topia is quaint. It’s rustic, in the sense that he can sense that a family has lived here for a long time and will continue to live here for a long time. There’s locals and regulars and there’s a worn quality that makes everything seem beloved and strangely meaningful. He checks in easily, and he asks after Yuuri to someone who turns out to be his  _ father _ and then he’s ushered quickly to a hot spring to soak and--

And then Yuuri shows up, in the dusklight of outside, and--

Yuuri runs away. 

Viktor is used to being chased, not to doing the chasing himself, but the whole time Yuuri is mumbling from behind his fingers in rapid Japanese and shaking his head and looking overwhelmed and flushed.

But finally, Yuuri seems to find his English again, and he says, “ _ Why _ ?”

Viktor smiles. “I saw your video,” he says. He rolls his head, letting his long neck go a little more exposed, his expression grow coy.  _ I saw your invitation. Did you think I had forgotten? _ “It was impressive work. I can’t wait to get you into fighting shape and see what you can really do to your full potential!”

Yuuri looks overwhelmed, eyes flitting from Viktor’s face to his neck to his face to his chest to his face, until finally upwards, heavenward. “I-- you--  _ what _ ?”

But Yuuri’s mother comes around the corner with a set of folded clothes and smiles warmly and says, “You must be hungry! Come, have some dinner!” 

And Viktor smiles at her (the smile he saves for women like Yuuri’s mother, for older married women, married but not dead, married but capable of fantasizing) and he takes the clothes and tugs them on and follows into the public dining room. 

Yuuri sits down at a table, dazed. Viktor sits down opposite him and smiles, the warm smile, the enticing smile. The  _ chase me  _ smile. 

Yuuri flushes yet pinker through his cheeks, rounder than Viktor remembers. All of Yuuri is rounder than Viktor remembers. It’s not  _ bad _ but they’ll eat him alive on the ice for it. They’ll eat him alive  _ off _ the ice for it. 

Viktor will eat him alive in  _ general _ but maybe not in the sense that other people mean. 

“It is quite simple, yes?” Viktor says. “I want to coach you. You need a coach. You will go to the Grand Prix Final and you will have a beautiful victory.”  _ And then you and I will get married, maybe in June, and it will be very tasteful and beautiful and you will look so nice in a suit.  _

“But-- but--  _ why _ ?” Yuuri sputters, again. 

But before Viktor can answer ( _ because you asked me to, sunbeam, and I cannot say no to you _ ) a long woman with snow dusted hair bursts between them and gasps. 

“It  _ is  _ true!” She exclaims, and then she turns to Yuuri. “Why haven’t you been answering my calls?”

Yuuri looks like a deer caught in the headlights, and barely opens his mouth before she plunges forward. 

“Are you really going to coach Yuuri?” She demands.

Viktor smiles, and nods. “Of course,” he says. “The hot springs are lovely, but they are not what brought me here.”

“Minako,” Yuuri groans into his hands. 

“Okukawa Minako,” she introduces, sitting down on the other side of the table. Yuuri’s father places a beer beside her and she doesn’t break eye contact as she opens it and downs it. “Yuuri’s ballet instructor and former coach.”

“Don’t I get any kind of say in this?” Yuuri asks, voice soft and anxious. 

Viktor feels himself grin, the cat that ate the canary. He catches the edge of Yuuri’s scent, sweat and panic over lemongrass and something floral Viktor can’t quite place. He feels it tug at the greedy, desirous thing inside himself. 

“It is wonderful to meet a former member of Yuuri’s team!” He says. “I have been seeing his previous performances; I would love to see notes!”

Bowls show up before all three of them, something dense and large and heavy. Viktor feels his eyes grow  _ huge _ to see it-- he’s been living off of protein shakes and brown rice since before he hit puberty; something like this is an indulgence of a high order. It looks so inviting, though, and Okukawa and Yuuri both say something before picking up their chopsticks and digging in. 

“What is this?” Viktor asks, looking at the bowl. 

“Katsudon?” Yuuri asks. He frowns, looking for words. “Pork cutlet over rice, with egg.”

Viktor takes a bite and it’s so  _ utterly _ rich. It’s astounding. It’s sensual. He loves it, and he understands immediately why Yuuri might love it. 

“Very good,” he murmurs. “Is this where your extra weight came from?”

Viktor knows it’s mean, maybe even a little unnecessarily so, but also, Viktor wants to tease Yuuri, who brought him here, who  _ knows _ him, who  _ owns _ him, and is acting like he didn’t and he doesn’t. 

Yuuri sputters around his food, and Okukawa laughs.


	4. Chapter 4

Yuuri wakes up at six am and he runs, from the spring to the beach, where he runs on the sand for about two miles before heading up the steps of the castle, back down, and then up the hill back to Yu-Topia. It’s eight, by the time he’s done with his run, and his mother has made breakfast and Viktor is awake. Yuuri drinks three cups of tea and cup after cup after cup of warm water, and he eats a bowl of brown rice with natto (macrobiotics!) and one hard boiled egg (he needs the protein). And then Viktor rides his bike while Yuuri jogs down the gym, and Viktor does something while Yuuri stretches, Yuuri lifts, Yuuri jump ropes. 

Yuuri works out, but he doesn’t hit the ice, and the absence of the ice and the  _ scrutiny _ \--

Viktor’s eyes--

It’s wearing on him. And it’s not just in his waking hours, or in the time that he’s working; it’s in the hours between. At meals ( _ Yuuri, what’s your favorite song? Why? Do you listen to--) _ or while he’s catching his break from his time in the pool ( _ How long have you been swimming? You’re very good in the water. Do the lifeguards-- _ ) or when he’s showered and he’s laying in bed, under his blankets, trying to move past the persistent soreness that’s caught between his shoulders or at the side of his knee and Viktor will knock and ask him if he wants a  _ sleepover _ . 

Who the hell even gave him the  _ word _ sleepover? Why is it in their shared English vocabulary?

Yuuri just wants to be left alone, and it’s like every sanctuary available to him has been taken, including the ice. 

Yuuri watches what he eats, and he works out, and he goes to bed exhausted and even a little hungry, but his body begins to kick into gear and the extra padding on his stomach and ribs disappears with the roundness in his cheeks and the plumpness in his ass. He feels himself shift out of the restive state and into that streamlined, angry thing he has to be on the ice. 

Yuuri wishes he could be soft on the ice.

He wishes he could be  _ himself _ generally anywhere, but alphas aren’t allowed softness. They aren’t allowed tears and they aren’t allowed the awful, flinching anxiety that consumes him and they aren’t allowed softness in their bodies and they aren’t allowed--

The routine that he did--

That Yuuri  _ stole _ to skate unseen, by himself--

Viktor skates  _ vulnerability _ . Openness, softness, tenderness. 

Yuuri wishes that he could be himself, and that he could be an alpha, too. Yuuri wishes that he could be himself, and be tenderness, too. 

But instead he goes to the gym every day and he helps out around the inn and he and Viktor build a mutual English vocabulary, peppered with Japanese and Russian.

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, one day, over lunch, “Yuuri,  _ Пряничек _ , how are you not overwhelmed? All the smells, in the inn-- I go blind, sometimes, with how many strangers.”

Yuuri looks up at Viktor, who is chewing a bite of eel. “Oh,” Yuuri says. “Uh. I--” He takes a bite of his own, stalling. 

It’s  _ embarrassing _ . 

“I use a medication,” he says. “When I was little, it--the  _ everything _ , and it makes it hard to focus. So I take a-- a  _ suppressant _ ? I guess? It makes it harder for me to smell, all the time.”

Viktor looks at him in a calculating, serious way. “I had no idea,” he says.

Yuuri shrugs. “It’s not uncommon. But it helps, a lot of the time.”

“Is this why you do not have a girlfriend?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri feels all his blood rush to his face. “No! No-- I mean-- I mean, I--” He sputters. 

“Ah,” Viktor says. “Why you do not have a boyfriend?”

Yuuri chokes on his drink, and in the ensuing chaos, he gets to dodge the question. 

The routine, between he and Viktor,  goes on for about three weeks, when Viktor finally tugs Yuuri into an instagram post that’s geotagged, and on the day Yuuri gets to go back to the ice (gets to go  _ home _ ), Yuri Plisetsky shows up.

* * *

 

“How could you be  _ attracted _ to that  _ soft pig,”  _ Yuri spits at Viktor over a bowl of rice. “He’s a failure. Come back to Russia and--”   
“Yuri,” Viktor says, letting his name roll over his tongue. So different from Yuuri’s; so similar. “Why are you so venomous toward my student? The competition is so much richer against worthy opponents.”

Yuri rolls his eyes, all the way into the back of his head. “This isn’t about  _ coaching _ , this is about you thinking with your dick and not your brain. Don’t be an idiot.”

“Yuri, I’ve been an idiot since before you set your feet in skates,” he hums, softly. “Don’t talk about him like that, either. I can’t wait to get him back on the ice.”

“You haven’t been training him on the  _ ice _ ?” Yuri demands. “What the hell  _ have _ you been doing?”

Yuuri emerges from the kitchen with his own bowl; brown rice with a pile of vegetables and tofu. He sits down, a side of the table all his own, and murmurs something before he begins to eat. 

“You steal everything from me,” Yuri says, darkly, in English. “First Viktor from his  _ proper _ place back in Russia and--”   
“I don’t appreciate you talking about  _ my proper place, _ Yuri,” Viktor says, sharply, in English of his own. 

Yuri is fifteen, but he’s an alpha and he forgets. He forgets that if Viktor were not a champion, if he had not done such glorious things to make Russia so proud of him, he would be married and a father by now; he would not be permitted to leave without his spouse; he would not have finished high school. Yuri is fifteen and an alpha, and he forgets that what Viktor does is, by nature, transgressive. 

Yuri forgets that to many people, Viktor’s  _ proper place _ is barefoot and pregnant. 

But the way Yuri shuts up for a moment and takes a bite of food seems as good an indicator as any that he’s been reminded.

“You promised,” Yuri says, after a beat, “that you would choreograph a routine for me.”

Yuuri looks up, over his bowl of food, at both of them. His body language shifts, somehow even more timid. 

_ Why do you hide? _ Viktor thinks.  _ You already have me.  _

“And I will,” Viktor says, placing his chopstick down on the table. “Yes. For both of you, routines. You will see. You will skate both of them, and then we will decide what occurs, yes? A little competition.”

Yuri practically snarls. “You’re on. You’ll see. I’ll  _ destroy _ the pig.” He finishes his food and storms off, to god knows where.

But to Viktor’s other side, Yuuri finishes eating and he turns to Viktor, seriously, and he nods.

“Okay,” he says. 

Viktor feels a thrill of something shoot up his spine. 


	5. Chapter 5

Yuuri can’t stop thinking about  _ eros _ , and whatever the hell that is, whatever the hell that means. 

Eros isn’t--

It isn’t quite love...it isn’t  _ not _ love either, but it’s not quite love. It’s a sort of charisma. It’s a way of loving that Yuuri has never imagined for himself, or as  _ being _ himself. Yuuri’s never wanted--

There were a couple, in Detroit, but not many and nothing long and no one who saw him like that-- not that Yuuri doesn’t (didn’t) want to be seen like that but--

Yuuri feels in himself that terrible ache.  _ It’s not you, it’s me. I want things that-- and it’s not fair to you-- to us-- _

Yuuri can’t be the right kind of Alpha for  _ eros _ , even though he’s tried. Conquering, taking, leaving-- this isn’t him. He wants someone to hold him in the middle of the night. He wants someone to know him. He wants someone to make dinner for and to be there in the morning. He doesn’t want to leave a string of bereft omegas in his wake or even just a  _ couple _ of them, and this makes him a disappointment. A  _ failure. _

He’s trying, he’s trying; he takes small comfort in the fact that Yuri can’t seem to figure out  _ agape _ . Yuuri wishes he had the language to give Yuri the framework for such a thing, almost. He can tell how frustrated he is, how caught and limited by it he feels. Yuri can’t seem to figure out how to rectify agape with the sense of passion that rides through him, informs his every animation.  

Right now, though, Yuri is off on some assignment from Viktor. Yuuri has the rink to himself, and he’s turning circles on the ice, turning closer and closer, tighter and tighter. He’s thinking, because all he can do is think, and the physical action of practicing spins is the most right he can make this moment feel. 

_ If you were the alpha they wanted, this would be natural; why isn’t this natural, why isn’t this natural,  _ he’s thinking, and it’s winding him up, tighter and tighter, angrier and angrier into himself. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor calls out, over the ice, to him. “Come.”

Yuuri looks at him. Viktor is standing by the barrier with his hand on his chin, fingers over his mouth. His hip is cocked slightly; the whole posture is both terribly inviting and very thoughtful.  _ Intense _ , Yuuri thinks, not for the first time. Everything to Viktor is relentless intensity, all the time. 

Yuuri skates over and rests his forearms on the barrier beside Viktor. He catches his breath, and after a moment, Viktor inhales, through his mouth, like a sigh. He pauses.

“Yuuri, what is  _ eros _ to you?” He asks.

-

Yuuri is like a hive of bees, so caught is he in figuring out this puzzle. 

It’s driving Viktor mad, of course. He  _ knows _ Yuuri can do it; he’s been hounding Chris Giacometti for the video file of Yuuri doing it for  _ months _ now. He knows Yuuri can do it because Viktor has  _ seen _ him do it and it sunk his ass.  He knows he can do it, but there’s something Yuuri’s not getting and it’s driving Yuuri up the wall, too. 

Yuuri skates over to the barrier, absolutely drenched with sweat. He’s wearing a short sleeved turtleneck that shows his firm biceps, but his slender, expressive hands are under gloves. Viktor is so glad there’s more than half a wall between them, he’s sure he’s got a conspicuous boner. And Yuuri leans on the barrier, so close, and Viktor can smell him; he can’t resist it, he takes a breath, open mouthed and feels Yuuri’s smell settle over and through him. Rain and herbal lemongrass; seawater salt and something floral that’s terribly evocative but nonspecific for him. Viktor pauses for a long moment, he hopes not  _ too _ obviously, before he asks, “Yuuri, what is  _ eros _ to you?”

Yuuri doesn’t say anything for a long moment, before he says, “I don’t know. I don’t know; it feels wrong. I don’t do it right. I can’t--”

Viktor turns slightly, closer to Yuuri. No one’s here to make fun of him and honestly, he  _ wants _ . He desires; he can’t help it. He leans into Yuuri’s space a little, lays his hand on Yuuri’s arm. 

“Yuuri,” he says, “what do you  _ desire _ ?”

Yuuri looks at him with his warm, brown eyes. Seeing, like maybe for the first time. 

Of course, in that moment, Yuri comes crashing in and shouts, “I went on your  _ idiotic _ run and learned  _ nothing _ , old man!”

And the moment passes and Viktor goes from being desperate, wanting omega to concerned but  _ brilliant  _ ( _ inexperienced, foolish, bad _ ) coach in an instant and he talks to Yuri and guides him through his choreography.

That night, Yuuri looks up from his bowl of brown rice and hard-boiled egg and fried vegetables with a revelation scrawled earnestly across his features.

“ _ Eros _ is katsudon,” he says. “It’s katsudon.”

Viktor looks at Yuuri, who is enigmatic and beautiful and inexplicable, Viktor looks at him absolutely befuddled but incredibly pleased. And in the day that remains before the competition, Yuuri  _ improves _ , is the thing. He spends a couple hours on the ice working on his jumps and his footwork, and then he disappears, off to somewhere else, to keep working, while Viktor works with Yuri. 

“He is an indolent fool,” Yuri says, in Russian, when Yuuri is gone. 

“You are fifteen,” Viktor answers. “I do not expect you to understand.”

“Viktor, come back to Russia,” he says. 

“You are fifteen,” Viktor repeats. “I do not expect you to understand.” He sighs. “Your footwork, again. Your ankles are sloppy; feet everywhere.”

He coaches Yuri for a couple hours more before they head back to Yu-Topia, where they eat and Viktor pulls them aside.

“What,” he says, “are you going to wear?”

Both of the blink, as if this was not something that had occurred to them. Of course, costume is important, but also--

When Yuuri picks it up, Viktor almost can’t believe it was  _ this _ one. It’s ancient; Viktor hasn’t worn it since he was seventeen, at a Grand Prix Finale in what was, for some reason,  _ Stockholm _ . But Yuuri handles it almost reverently, like it’s a holy relic. Viktor feels his heart skip to watch him, to watch him take it gently.

That night Viktor gets hard to the thought of Yuuri in his clothes, and he comes with Yuuri’s name trapped in his throat. He didn’t think it would leave him so electrified, to think that Yuuri would be wrapped up in  _ him _ ; he didn’t know he could feel this way, possessive and protective. He thought these weren’t his feelings to feel; all of the alpha’s he’d ever been with talked about him like he was some kind of treasure to own and then acted like that discussion was a part of their biology. But he wants to own Yuuri and he wants the  _ world _ to know that if they hurt Yuuri they hurt  _ him _ and that he is nothing if not a little cruel. 

It’s overwhelming and surprising, like all of this has been. 

He falls asleep thinking of lemongrass, and he wakes up in time to grab a short shower and head to the rink, before Yuri or Yuuri can talk to him, before the press gets there.

He looks out, over the ice, for a long time. 

The ice that holds all of Viktor; the ice that has defined him. 

Yuri knows that no matter what happens, Viktor will stay. 

Viktor hopes that Yuri only hates him for it, and not Yuuri. 

Yuuri’s going to step onto the ice, when Yuuri takes a deep breath. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor says. “You skate...you skate so beautifully. You are so talented. Why-- why can’t you show them?”

Yuuri freezes, briefly. “I--I...I can’t do it. I’m just--it freezes me. It terrifies me. I don’t have the-- the  _ confidence _ .”

_ Let me be your confidence,  _ Viktor thinks.  _Wear me like armor._

But Yuuri surprises him. He leans forward, to hug him, and he says in his ear with absolute  _ gravity _ , “I’m going to go out there, and I’m going to be the best katsudon.”

Viktor pulls from the hug and looks at him--

Lemongrass and rainwater Yuuri, who surprises him at every turn. Brave Yuuri, who hides. Viktor smiles, his heart owned, and he answers, “I’m sure you will. I love katsudon.”


	6. Chapter 6

“You are a liar,” Yuri says, beside him. “I will see you in hell.”

Yuuri is--

It’s different than it was at the banquet. It’s shatteringly intense, it’s practiced, it’s smooth. The banquet, it had no artifice; it was utterly organic. This is different. 

This is a real dance, and Viktor--

Oh, as if Viktor has ever been able to look away from Yuuri. 

Yuuri, an alpha who asks to be chased. Not demands, not orders--  _ asks _ .

Who Yuuri is, in the program, is luxuriant, decadent. Waiting, entangling. Viktor hates that he can understand this as the language of a bowl of katsudon but he’s  _ elated _ that he can see it in the language Yuuri uses; in the language Yuuri thinks of as himself. And it’s strange, but Viktor can see, in how Yuuri becomes  _ eros _ (how he becomes  _ seduction _ ) how Yuuri learns to become the things they always wanted Viktor to become. 

Yuuri doesn’t conquer, and he doesn’t want to. 

Unlike any other alpha Viktor has known, Yuuri makes himself vulnerable to make himself  _ erotic _ . 

It sets him on  _ fire _ , and he can see from the corner of his eye Yuri keeping his anger alive with the heat of it. Yuuri finishes. 

The crowd cheers, none of them louder than the beating of Viktor’s heart.

“You are a liar,” Yuri says. “Anything I put on the ice out there-- it doesn’t  _ matter. _ ” He leans to the side and spits on the floor. “Anything I do, you’ll stay here, instead of coming back. You could be a  _ god _ . You could be unstoppable; you could take Yakov’s rink from him.”

“And easily,” Viktor says, because he could. “But I don’t  _ want _ to.”

“You  _ promised _ ,” Yuri says. 

“I promised to choreograph a routine for you,” Viktor says. “And I did.”

But Viktor knows what Yuri thinks that promise meant, and Viktor knows what that promise couldn’t mean. 

Yuri wanted it to mean that Viktor would wait. Yuri wanted it to mean that Viktor would wait for him.

Yuuri comes back, and Viktor embraces him, before giving him the corrections on his program.

* * *

 

Plisetky moves like a surgeon; that’s the only way Yuuri can think of it.

He loves to watch him, factually. He does it incredibly; he moves with surety, like he’s never doubted a thing in his life. He loses his grasp of  _ agape _ in it, but Yuuri doesn’t really care. Plisetsky skates in complex, shattering way; Plisetsky skates like the ice is his first language.

Yuuri’s ready to let Viktor go back to Russia (not really, not really, somehow Viktor has taken up an enormous part of Yuuri’s thoughts, Yuuri’s heart, Yuuri’s  _ soul _ ; not like he used to, this time like he’s someone Yuuri actually knows; the thought of Viktor leaving tugs something physical and fleshy and real inside him and Yuuri can’t make sense of it). Yuuri’s ready for Plisetsky--  _ Yuri _ \-- to be the winner, to take the prize. That’s the way these things go. Yuuri competes, and he does his best, and it’s not quite enough. Usually just good enough for silver, for the next step, but never really extraordinary. 

Yuri came here to take Viktor back, and Yuuri will let him.

It’s probably what Viktor wants anyway.

But instead, he spits something about seeing Yuuri at the Gran Prix and then he growls something and Viktor and he leaves Yu-Topia and--

It’s not really until then, watching him go, that it registers with Yuuri that he won. 

He looks at him depart, at him catch the cab and the cab peel away, and Yuuri watches the car go unseeable on the road, and Yuuri looks at his hands (as if his hands have ever determined his success or failure on the ice), and he says, softly, absently, “I won.”

He turns around and he walks back into the inn and Viktor is at a table with a bowl of noodles to the right of him and a pad of paper to the left of him and a computer in front of him. Makkachin is laying beside him, wagging his tail lazily. Viktor has a pen in his mouth. The life of the inn continues on around him; men sipping sake at tables nearby and his father complaining loudly about soccer scores with the doctor that delivered Yuuri in this house years ago. It’s like the competition didn’t even happen; like it never existed to begin with. 

His parents have never understood his sport, and Yuuri feels an acute thankfulness for that. Yu-topia is almost an oasis from his career; from the spectacle of it. 

Even with Viktor, his idol, his coach, here, home feels like an oasis.

Yuuri looks at Viktor, and he feels himself say softly, “This is real.”

Viktor looks up at him and smiles. “Yuuri!” he exclaims. “Let’s start planning your free!”

Yuuri nods, a couple times, and then he sits down at the table, beside him. 

Viktor looks a little flushed, but he seems pleased. He’s wearing the loose clothes guests wear when they’ve just gotten out of the spring and his hair is wet. Without him mentioning anything, his sister drops a bowl of soba beside him. He smiles. “Thanks,” he says to her. 

She nods. “Katsudon for dinner,” she says.

Yuuri looks from her to Viktor and Viktor nods. 

“You won a competition,” he says, his mouth breaking into his wide, open smile.

Yuuri feels his stomach flutter, with something he’s never really felt before.

He won. 

He takes his chopsticks and takes a bite of the noodles. They’re good, but they’re always good. His mother has never made a bad bowl of noodles in Yuuri’s memory, and Mari hasn’t either. Yuuri eats a little and has some water, and with the adrenaline of the competition gone and the sweat showered off, all that’s left is a restive sort of soreness and something remarkably easy and comfortable. 

Viktor moves over the laptop and leans across the table to be closer to Yuuri. 

He smiles. 

Inexplicably, Yuuri catches the smell of pine resin; from where he cannot determine. 

“Yuuri,” he says. “What’s your  _ theme  _ for this season?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mad props to my pal flynn who helped me wrangle some of this into a shape i kind of like; that was hard and i'm bad at it.  
> come see me on my tumbo.


	7. Chapter 7

Time passes, in its strange fits and starts. Practices feel  _ eternal _ , as they are wont to do, but they’re also over all at once. Meals are instants and falling asleep, looking at the wall of his bedroom, feels like hours. Wondering about the competition and about the routine, but also--

Wondering about Viktor.

Yuuri can’t stop thinking about him. It makes him feel foolish; like a teenager with a crush all over again. At practice, when Viktor’s hands guide his posture into the right shape, Yuuri’s skin burns with a kind of memory of the touch. At meals, Yuuri can’t stop paying attention to what Viktor’s eating and wondering if he likes it or not. At night, he’s so painfully aware of the thin walls that keep them apart. Does Viktor have clean laundry? Is Viktor feeling well? The laugh, that Viktor laughs when Yuuri tells a joke or makes a comment-- how can he get him to make that laugh again? 

Time passes, and Yuuri feels something foreign bubble up in the cavity under his lungs, something effervescent and heady and  _ distracting _ .

But if there’s been a change in Yuuri, Viktor hasn’t mentioned it, which is good, because Yuuri’s not sure he could bear it if Viktor decided to go  _ now _ . 

Time passes, until they’re a week away from the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu competition, and Yuuri feels his nerves running in a hot, rampant circuit. He’s practicing all the way through is routines now and he’s practicing jumps. Most of his time is spent on the ice now, crosstraining a dream of earlier weeks. This is  _ it _ . This is the proving ground, the big moment. 

And still, what if he’s not good enough?

If it were a different season or he were with a different coach, Yuuri suspects he would be stress eating instead of waking up at four in the morning to go for a run in the dark. 

But instead, he wakes up ten minutes before his alarm sounds and he tugs on tennis shoes and runs five miles and back. 

That’s the plan, until he gets to the door, and Viktor’s there, slipping a harness onto Makkachin. 

“Yuuri,” he says. His voice cracks a little with leftover sleepiness, Yuuri is sure. “A morning run?”

Yuuri looks at Viktor and Makkachin, and he nods, 

Viktor nods back. “A run,” he says. “And then rest. No time on the ice today.”

“But--” Yuuri stammers. “But  _ Wednesday _ .”

Viktor nods. “I know. You are missing jumps and sequences that I  _ know _ you can do-- that I’ve  _ seen _ you do because you’re not trusting yourself. You’re not resting. I would know, I do the same thing.”

Yuuri finds it personally unbelievable that Viktor would flub a jump or let a competition get so far under his skin. 

Viktor yawns. “If I do not start moving, I will fall asleep, Yuuri. Let’s run.”

Yuuri nods and they step out of the inn and start running.

Instead of Viktor setting pace, he follows Yuuri, down the long path and down the high hill and the steps all the way down to the beach. Yuuri tracked it once; the path he takes is about five miles down the beach and then two and a half miles back through town to the inn. He likes the resistant, difficult motion of running on the beach; he likes that it fights him the whole time, different from skating, which builds momentum. He likes how different the  _ burn _ of it is and he likes how easy the rest of it feels back after. He doesn’t run as fast as Viktor usually does, but he keeps going. It’s not until he’s about three miles into the run when turns around and realizes that Viktor is nowhere to be seen. 

Yuuri stops, and he looks around, pausing for a moment.

Viktor catches up to him after about three minutes, red faced but breathing steady; Makkachin’s bounding pace still there.

Yuuri picks back up with him at an easy jog. 

“I didn’t realize,” Yuuri says between breaths. “Sorry.”

Viktor shakes his head, still going. “I am not used to beaches,” he says. “Much stiffer than the pavement. Good exercise. Your stamina! This is very impressive.”

Yuuri is glad it’s dark enough to cover his blush; he’s not sure he could bear to hear Viktor compliment him on his  _ running _ .

There’s that smell again; the one Yuuri is coming to know is part of Viktor and not a fluke. Dark pine resin, astringent and sharp. Yuuri takes a deep breath, and he catches it with the salt air. It makes something in him almost  _ tingle _ . Something shifts. 

But as soon as that feeling-- all at once brand new and strangely familiar-- comes up, Yuuri crushes it back down. 

He keeps running.

* * *

 

Yuuri’s four-in-the-morning run is more punishing than any eight hour practice Viktor’s ever had. He doesn't understand how Yuuri does it; from what unfathomable well of strength it comes from, because Yuuri surges ahead of him on the beach, and then jogs amiably beside him the rest of the way, barely breaking a sweat. 

Viktor feels a dull kind of regret that all of the running training he did with Yuuri earlier in the year was on streets instead of the beach. 

But the run eventually finishes, and by the time they make it back to Yu-topia nearly ninety minutes later, they’re both sweaty and Makkachin is ready to go back to bed. 

The leave their shoes in the entryway, and Yuuri is stretching his shoulders when he glances over to Viktor and says, “Want to use the springs before anyone else?”

Viktor feels his eyebrows raise. 

“I have the key,” Yuuri says, smiling, a little mischievous. 

Viktor smiles back. He nods.

They sneak through the empty front and to the side, where the hall leading to the springs is. Yuuri strips easily out of his sweats, and Viktor casts his eyes aside, trying to afford him as much privacy as possible. Yuuri doesn’t like Viktor looking, for some reason. It’s not like Viktor hasn’t seen him  _ before _ . 

Viktor will not look, though, if Yuuri does not want him looking. 

Viktor strips himself and folds his clothes into a neat pile. Yuuri draws the hot tap on and tosses Viktor a small washcolth. He fills a bucket. 

Viktor fills his own bucket and using the bucket and a large cake of soap, he washes the sweat and salt of the run from himself. 

After a few moments, though, Yuuri says softly-- very, very quietly, so quietly that if he wanted, Viktor could easily pretend not to hear-- Yuuri say, “Could you please wash my back?”

Viktor turns. 

Usually, they do this back to back, not looking at each other. Yuuri is perched on a small stool; his dark hair already wet. His shoulders are pale, even in the flourescent lighting of the room. His posture is so vulnerable, so exposed. 

Viktor nods, before realizing, and he murmurs, softly, “ да.” 

He takes a washcloth and submerges it in the bucket. He wrings it a little, and he lets it drag over Yuuri’s back. Yuuri sighs, contentedly, at the gesture. 

Viktor feels his heart speed intolerably. 

VIktor lathers a brush, a wooden one with Yuuri’s name burned into the top. He scrubs along the skin of Yuuri’s back, leaving a deep flush in the bristles’ wake. 

Yuuri groans.

Viktor wants this moment to never stop. 

Maybe it’s just his imagination, but Yuuri’s skin does feel softer when he runs his hand over it, rinsing it with clean water. 

After a few more moments, Yuuri murmurs a quick word of Japanese, one Viktor has grown to know means  _ thank you.  _ Viktor nods as an answer. 

Yuuri stands. He wraps a clean, dry towel around his midsection, and he walks out of the washroom and to the spring. 

Viktor feels his fingertips tingle, watching him go. 


	8. Chapter 8

Yuuri lays back into the spring and he closes his eyes and he  _ wills _ his heartbeat to slow down. He’s not sure what  _ possessed _ him to do such a thing, but he did and--

It felt so right. It felt like everything he ever wanted. It felt like care, like intimacy. It felt so overwhelmingly  _ sexy _ . 

Yuuri’s never felt anything quite like it before.

He leaves his arms out of the spring, and he lets the water ease the aches out of his body from his run. The sun is just beginning to come up, coloring the world a little orange, a little pink. Fall soon. Trees will drop their leaves and Yuuri--

Yuuri will compete.

He takes a deep, deep breath, and he catches that  _ smell _ again. 

The door opens. Viktor has a towel for modesty about his hips, but Yuuri has trained himself well to not see by now. He slips into the water, across from him.

Neither of them says anything, for a long, long time.

“I wanted to be just like you, when I was younger,” Yuuri says, after a moment. His voice is low, soft. He thinks if he spoke any louder, he would break the early-morning moment that lets this happen. “I still do.”

Viktor doesn’t say anything.

“They don’t see _me_. They see some dumb _Alpha_ playing at being-- I just-- I just want it to be _beautiful_ ,” Yuuri says. He barely says it. He barely exhales it. He’s not sure Viktor can hear it, and if it hadn’t been the all consuming thought he’d had since puberty ( _beautiful, beautiful, beautiful_ ), he’s not sure he’d hear it either. 

“I just want to be beautiful,” he says, again. 

He hopes Viktor hears. He hopes Viktor  _ doesn’t _ hear.

“My parents were so disappointed,” Viktor says. “Yakov, too. He never said it, but I knew.” Viktor swallows. “I did not let them make me stop.” 

Viktor sighs. He looks, suddenly, very vulnerable. Raw. More than he ever did on the ice and more than he does with all of his clothes off, Viktor looks  _ naked _ .

“I live most of my life out of spite. I devoted myself to skating out of spite. I wanted them to take me  _ seriously _ . And I got-- I got  _ bored  _ of it. Before they took me seriously, I made it boring,” he says. “They wanted only I to be pretty.”

He laughs, bitterly.

“You were beautiful,” Yuuri says, because it’s true, and because  _ beautiful _ is very different from  _ pretty.  _ Yuuri says it because he could never, ever stop watching. He could never dismiss Viktor.  He could never look away.

He never wants to, either. 

He thinks, maybe, in the light of the dawn, that they understand each other. That maybe Viktor understands him like no one else ever has. 

Viktor closes his eyes, as if savoring it, as if hearing it for the first time, as if something Yuuri has said might be called sacrament. 

“Thank you,” Viktor says, his own voice very, very soft. “Thank you, Yuuri.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is very short but it felt: very right and very complete, as a discrete idea.


	9. Chapter 9

Yuuri places  _ first. _

He’s back home, in Hasetsu, and he’s just so--

The competition was last week and Yuuri still can’t quite believe--

It stops his heart, to remember the scores coming in, to remember that he  _ qualified,  _ and to remember that he’s going to-- 

To the next competition. To China. 

Soon.

He’s still training, still making his program better, working on his jumps, on the order of them. Yuuri’s working, because there’s so much work to  _ do.  _ And Viktor’s working, too, Yuuri can see it. He can see it in the tired hold of his shoulders and the bags under his eyes, to the way his weight sits cocked on his hips instead of evenly through a viciously straight spine. Yuuri can see everything on Viktor; Yuuri can’t stop  _ watching  _ Viktor. Since his open arms at the competition, Yuuri can’t stop watching. 

Since the morning in the springs, something is different, something that competition only brought out more. Yuuri is close to Viktor, and Viktor is close to him. Yuuri trusts Viktor, to be honest with him, but not to hurt him. Yuuri trusts him to touch him, to reach out and teach him to move. Yuuri trusts Viktor to hold his secrets, when he’s so vulnerable, when he’s so  _ naked _ .

Yuuri turns over in bed.

He can’t sleep at all. He’s been having trouble all week, he’s not sure why. He’s sore, but not more than usual. He’s exhausted, but only in the mounting sleeplessness sort of way, not the  _ something wrong _ kind of way. It’s not--

He just can’t get his brain to turn off. 

He sits up, in bed. It’s one. He has to be awake in four hours, to jog and stretch, but sleep eludes him, still. 

He gets up, to slouch to the kitchen and drink some tea when he runs into Mari, outside of Viktor’s door, holding a pharmacy bag.

She looks at him, her face guilty. 

Viktor’s face peaks out, flushed and--

Yuuri covers his nose and  _ gasps _ . It overwhelms him. It’s so much. It’s so much and it’s--

Winter pine and sea salt and wet slate; rocks and trees and  _ ice _ . It figures that  _ ice _ would be so much of Viktor that it’s even in his  _ scent _ . Yuuri catches the sensation of burned sugar at the back of his throat and something else, something herbal-- eucalyptus?

It’s so much and it’s Viktor and Yuuri feels his mouth water and his heartbeat go so fast in him that it leaves him stumbling, dizzy, against his door. 

Is it  _ always _ so strong? Is it always so enticing, so sensual, so  _ strong _ ? 

Viktor smells so  _ strong _ , like a protector. Yuuri feels something of him  _ ache _ . 

And then there’s something over his mouth and he feels the ache recede and Mari has a mask over his mouth and nose, one with the clean, neutral scent of a blocker.

“He’s in heat,” she says. “He texted me. He’ll be fine.”

Yuuri nods, dumbly.

Over her shoulder, he can see that the door is firmly shut. 

“He said he’d be fine as long as he stays in and he’ll be fine in three or four days,” she says. She hands him a  _ binder _ . “This is stuff he says you should look at and work on.”

Yuuri nods, dumbly. 

“I’m going to  _ fucking _ bed,” she grumbles. “Can’t believe I had to get heat supplies for  _ your _ idiot.”

* * *

 

Viktor’s been feeling fucked up, and it’s not until he  _ feels _ it does he realize it. Yuuri doesn’t seem to mind, though, when he calls quits early on practice-- this is going to put him out of commission for half a week, and until Yuuri is  _ actually _ his and married to him and fucking him on the regular, Viktor won’t subject him to who he is when he’s in heat. 

He’ll run to the drug store soon, to get medicine and a blocker mask for Yuuri, but right now he needs to make sure he’ll be fine for training while Viktor’s less than lucid. 

He pulls up his notes on his computer and prints them, adding some handwritten materials and references and videos in a folder he’s sharing with Yuuri digitally. Physical regimens and viewing-- it helps Yuuri enormously to  _ see _ things, to envision them, so Viktor’s found tangoes for Eros (but not  _ that _ tango, alas) and some of Lilia’s old ballet routines for his free program. 

And then suddenly it’s eleven pm and Viktor finds that he can’t keep his eyes straight and he’s too hot and his pulse is racing and he hasn’t eaten and he hasn’t made it to the drugstore, either, and who will care for Makkachin?

He lays back onto his bed and groans, throwing his arm over his eyes. 

_ Fuck _ .

He turns over, feeling his pulse in his throat, throwing his scent as far as it can. His hands are shaking and his breath is shuddering. 

He pulls out his phone and sends a message to Mari.

_ I need your help. _

A few moments later--  _ what did you do. _

Mari speaks significantly more English than Yuuri’s parents, although less than Yuuri’s. They don’t speak often, usually just passing information about Yuuri back and forth. 

_ My heat just started _ , he sends.

There’s a long, long pause, before she sends,  _ I’m headed out. What do you use. _

Viktor sends her the names of the handful of things he uses-- a cooling gel for his pulse points to help keep the fever low, a compound of acetaminophen and a scent blocker, scenting salts if he needs to be lucid for a few moments in case of emergency, and an anti-emetic (he gets to terribly  _ nauseous _ ). 

He turns over in bed and he thinks about Yuuri. 

Yuuri who touched him, Yuuri who danced with him, Yuuri who thinks he’s  _ beautiful _ . Yuuri--

Viktor trains his eye on the window of his room; he wonders if Yuuri is thinking of him. 

There’s a knock on his door and he opens it and Mari’s there with a bag and a mask on, already. 

“Thanks,” Viktor whispers, thrusting the binder in her arms. “For Yurri, for his training-- tell him he should--”   
But then his door opens and he looks at them before his eyes grow  _ enormous _ and he covers his mouth, pupils going  _ huge _ . He gasps and--

Viktor can just  _ barely _ catch the smell of him before Mari pushes him into his room with the bag and slams the door.

Viktor feels himself groan, loudly, the sound tearing up and out of his throat. 

It’s going to be an agonizing three days.


	10. Chapter 10

Yuuri loves Makkachin almost as much as he loved Vicchan, but he mostly he misses Viktor.

Viktor’s not well enough to walk and care for her, and according to Mari, he usually boards her when he has heats. Yuuri doesn’t mind, though. He doesn’t mind the kind of soft rhythms of an old dog like her; the long, slow walks through town, the canned food, the way she falls asleep with her head in his lap when he sits down to study the videoes Viktor arranged for him. 

It’s weird being coached at a  _ distance _ like this, and even though Yuuri knows that it won’t even be for a full week, it makes him feel like Viktor is on another continent and not sequestered in a bedroom right down the hall from him. Yuuri’s not sure how he’s doing it; he knows he must be using the bathroom and eating, but he’s not sure how, in the  _ tiny _ family quarters of the inn, Viktor has managed to go almost entirely unseen from Yuuri. 

Yuuri’s skating, big, looping figure eights, because he’s  _ anxious _ and that’s the only way he knows how to calm himself down. Nothing fancy, not even step sequences, just big, gentle loops. He sighs, heavily. He did some weight training and some time in Minako’s studio today, and he can feel the difference in how his thighs are shifting, the sheer force of holding him up. 

He sighs, coming to the wal. 

Yuuko appears from the hall and tosses him a bottle of water. He catches it and takes a sip. 

“You should text him,” she says. “If he had his phone to contact Mari, I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”   
Yuuri feels himself flush. “He’s-- but--” He sighs. “Yuuko, I don’t know.”

“When I was going through my heats, before we were married, Takeshi would leave me notes,” she says. “And eventually messages. It was nice. It made it less lonely.”

Yuuri swallows. “But you and Nishigori-- Yuuko you got  _ married _ ,” he says, his voice sounding painfully unsure. 

Yuuko shrugs. “He might appreciate it. I always did,” she comments. “Now show me your step sequence! You can’t just be out here doing loops!”

Yuuri sighs, and he tries not to think about it until the evening, when the rink shutters for the night.

He pulls out his phone. Makkachin barks softly beside him. 

“Makka,” he says, “smile for the camera!”

* * *

 

Viktor’s sticky and tired and  _ sore _ . He’s so sore, all his muscles aching with the fever, despite the medication. He’s both too hot and miserably cold, incredibly tired and wired awake. He’s  _ miserable _ , like he always is when he’s in heat. Heat isn’t fun or bright, at least without an alpha around to take good care of him. It’s just exhausting and uncomfortable and lonely. He’s so  _ lonely _ . 

It’s a real testament to his self control that he hasn’t opened his door and settled into Yuuri’s bed. 

Yuuri, who would let him hold him close and tight and kiss him and be soft to him. With him. Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri. 

Viktor feels his name like a thrum in his blood. 

His phone buzzes. He sits up and grabs it from his nightstand and--

He feels his heart stutter. 

It’s from  _ Yuuri _ and it’s a picture of Makka. They’re outside, near the rink.

_ Old Girl helped me at practice today!  _ The message says.  _ She was very helpful with my step sequence _ .

Viktor smiles. 

_ One of my best critics,  _ he texts back.  _ A very good coach. Much better than yours. _

A moment.  _ I’m not sure about that, _ Yuuri answers. He adds a picture of the sunset over the water. 

_ Practice went well _ , a moment later.  _ Thanks for the videoes.  _

Viktor smiles.  _ Sorry I’m out of commission,  _ he sends.  _ I have salts, though, if you really need me.  _

Another beat.  _ Don’t do that for me,  _ Yuuri sends.  _ I’ll be fine. I am fine.  _

Another beat.  _ I’m fine. _

And then a picture of Yuuri himself, looking sweaty from practice, his hair a mess over his eyes and glasses, his smile worried, unsure, but  _ present _ .

Viktor presses his phone to his chest. 

Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri. 

_ I love you,  _ Viktor types.  _ Come for me, Yuratchka _ . 

He types it, but he doesn’t send it. 


	11. Chapter 11

Yuuri gets home late. 

It’s the third day of Viktor’s heat, and they’ve shared a few back-and-forth text exchanges but mostly, it’s been quiet, and Yuuri’s been filling the quiet with anxious practices and long walks with Makkachin. He’s been making himself sore with it, winding himself tighter and tighter with it. The only thing to get him to  _ sleep _ is to get him too tired to think. 

So it’s about midnight when he’s finally yawning and when Makkachin is moving at a drowsy, wobbly sort of pace that he heads home. 

Yuuri comes inside and settles onto the couch. He sighs, heavily, before pulling off his jacket and shucking off his socks, his bruised and bleeding feet  _ hideous _ in the florescent living room light. His feet are always ugly, but at midnight, especially so. 

He gets up and limps to the bathroom, to maybe soak them and take some ibuprofen, when Viktor’s door opens and--

And there he is. 

He looks sticky, with sweat and something else, and he’s flushed to the roots of his hair, which is mussed and settled over both of his eyes. He runs a hand through it, and it settles out of his vision, just barely.

Yuuri swallows.

The smell of him--

It’s not over.

But Viktor looks at him, before his eyes catch his feet, and he goes, “Ay, Yuratchka, your  _ feet _ .” It’s a sigh, weighty and tender and concerned. 

Yuuri feels a laugh burble up from between his ribs. “We’re ice skaters, Viktor,” he says. “Of course my feet look like this.”

Yuuri feels a little drunk, from the heady smell of Viktor’s heat and the exhaustion and the soreness pervading his whole body. He wants to follow Viktor to bed and let him curl around him, warm and strong. He want it so badly he can taste it like he can taste the deep wood-taste on his tongue. Viktor’s heat must be insane, if Yuuri can still smell him like this even on his blocker. 

Yuuri knows he’s close to Viktor, a little more than a coach, but he knows he’s not close enough to do something like that.

“I was going to shower,” he says.

Viktor nods. “Me too,” he says. “You first. You need hot water.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “I can-- I can wait. You must be exhausted.”

Viktor huffs a brief, mirthless laugh. “You have been training for competition,” he says. “I have been in bed, all day.” Maybe Yuuri’s imagining, but Viktor’s voice feels thicker, his accent heavy instead of just skirting the edges of his words. It’s telling, strangely, of how tired he must be. Not too tired, though, to stand and argue with Yuuri in the hallway.

“I need to throw in some laundry,”  Yuuri says, which isn’t a  _ lie _ . “And eat something. It’ll be a little while. Go ahead.”   
Makkachin, at that moment, comes down the hall and nudges against Viktor a few times.

“Makka,” Viktor says, affectionately, before he begins to babble in Russian. It’s very tender, if not entirely lucid. 

Yuuri feels a sudden, consuming desire to learn Russian.

Yuuri slips past Viktor to his bedroom, where he fills his laundry hamper and heads to the washer.

* * *

 

Viktor sees Yuuri, and he knows what’s wrong, almost immediately. 

“You didn’t sleep,” he says, deadpan. 

Yuuri’s pale skin pinkens briefly, guiltily. “I-- I went to bed,” he defends, weakly. Viktor has long learned that “going to bed” and “sleeping” are wholly different things, especially for Yuuri. 

“Come,” Viktor says. “Come, come come.” He pulls Yuuri away from the practice area-- they get limited time to practice in the morning before the competition in the evening. But Viktor knows that what Yuuri really needs is not more practice but  _ rest _ . 

He’s not surprised he didn’t sleep. He did so well, yesterday, beautifully, as good as Viktor always, always knew he would. How no one else ever saw before, the things in Yuuri waiting to break free, he is unsure, but they just began to surface, yesterday, and the only thing that could make today more nerve-wracking for Yuuri than an abysmal performance would be a perfect one.

So Viktor  tugs Yuuri away from the rink and back to the hotel and lays him on the bed and lays down beside him, setting his alarm. 

“Sleep,” he says. “Rest is good for you.”

Yuuri goes tense, beside him, so Viktor drapes his leg over his legs. He will  _ not _ be getting up from the bed until Viktor lets him. 

But something shifts, just barely, a few moments on, and Viktor realizes that Yuuri has relaxed ever,  _ ever _ so slightly, and his breathing goes deeper, softer, and steadier. 

_ Ax _ , Viktor thinks,  _ rest, my Yuuri. _

Yuuri falls asleep and Viktor, his body over him, dozes softly in the space beside him. He lets himself  _ smell _ Yuuri, right up close, catching all the smell of plants and spring and flowers, but also something of smoke or ash, maybe. Something ever so slightly bitter, at the back of his throat. Viktor lets Yuuri’s scent wash over him, and tug him deeper into that loose, relaxed state. Things have been so intense since his heat put them off schedule, and something between them has been different, crackling with electricity and tension. Something between them has always been full of that electricity. 

Viktor falls asleep, and when the phone rings, Yuuri looks a little more rested, even if he’s still flinching and jittery.

They head back to the stadium and Viktor pulls Yuuri to the side, before warm ups.

“Don’t do jumps,” he says. “Right now. You’re not in a good place.”

Yuuri nods.

But he does the jumps anyway, and because he’s not in a good place, he flubs them. 

Viktor clenches his fists and feel himself growl with anger.  _ Stubborn _ , he thinks.  _ Alpha. _

Yuuri doesn’t pull stuff like this often, this  _ I know best _ shit, but Viktor knows what it is. Yuri and Yakov and Georgi always pulled it, and his father did, too. Not listening, not hearing these things because Viktor has said them and not someone believable. Someone worth _hearing_. It makes him want to strangle him. He’s in a bad place and the flubbed practice jumps will only make it worse. Viktor knew. Viktor saw. 

He calms himself down, though. Viktor being angry will only make it worse. 

When Yuuri comes back from warmups, he still looks stricken. He looks no better for their nap in the hotel now, either.

He only gets worse, though, watching the other competitors. He shakes and he twitches. He’s stretching absently when Viktor catches sight of the press, and he pulls him away. Yuuri needs somewhere quiet, somewhere he can hear himself think, or maybe hear Viktor think for him. He’s caught in one of his cycles, brain racing through the same thought over and over. Viktor knows, he can tell. He’s been watching Yuuri for months now and he knows him like he knows himself. 

This is how they end up in the parking garage, and this is how Viktor finds himself covering a panicking Yuuri’s ears and shouting, “ _ Don’t listen!” _

Yuuri looks at him, wide brown eyes watery and shaking. Wound himself so tightly he can’t breathe. 

Viktor never knew an alpha could pursue themselves this way. 

“Yuuri don’t  _ listen _ ,” he pleads, again. _ Let me protect you.  _

He looks so tired. He looks so scared. Small, in his sweats and makeup. All fear. All fear and no motivation, just exhaustion. 

How does Viktor give him something to go on instead of exhaustion?

Yuuri takes his hands though, and says, “Viktor? It’s almost time. We should head back.”

And he turns, to leave. All exhaustion. All anxiety. 

_ Give him nothing to lose, _ something in Viktor says.

“Yuuri,” he calls, turning around. “If you miss the podium-- I will accept responsibility, by resigning as your coach.”

And Viktor expects--

He expects a lot of things. He expects anger (the kind Yurio gave him when Viktor forgot his promise, or the king Yakov gave him when he left for Japan in the first place) or maybe resignation (the kind his father had when Viktor had his first heat). He expects, first and foremost,  _ acknowledgement _ . But nothing happens for a moment, and Viktor is just beginning to suspect that maybe he’s miscalculated, when Yuuri does something he’s never seen an alpha do before. 

Yuuri-- his Yuuri, his lemongrass and smoke and salt-air Yuuri-- cries.

“Why...why would you say something like that?” He asks, in English, before something in Japanese that Viktor doesn’t catch. 

“ _ Ax _ , Yuuri,” he says. “I wasn’t-- I didn’t mean--”

“I’m used to being blamed for my failures,” Yuuri cries, shrinking into himself, away from Viktor’s hands. “But now they reflect on  _ you _ . I know you want to quit--”

“Yuuri, I don’t--” He interjects, before Yuuri shouts,  _ shouts. _

“ _ I know!”  _ And his voice rings through the garage, loud. It makes Viktor’s heart freeze.

_ I’m no good at this, _ he thinks.  _ How do I fix this? How do I fix this? _

“Should I just kiss you or something?” He says.  _ A gesture? To make it all better? How do I fix this?  _

“No!” Yuuri cries, and he looks at him again, for the first time since he started crying, brown eyes wavering with tears. “Just have faith in me! Believe in me, please!” His voice cracks, breaks. Viktor cracks, shatters. “Just stay  _ by me _ !”

And a thousand things flood the space between Viktor’s tongue and his throat.  _ Of course I will, you can’t get rid of me. I’m here, you’re stuck with me. I love you. I love you, I love you. I will always be by you. Always. _

But instead he nods, just once, and he holds his gaze for as long as Yuuri will let him, before he turns, and they head, into the lion’s den.


	12. Chapter 12

Yuuri doesn’t feel anything.

Usually, he feels  _ everything,  _ all the time. He takes three different pills every day because of it. When Vicchan died, he felt absolute, crushing  _ everythingness _ and when he was on the ice at Hasetsu and Kyushu he--

Yuuri usually feels everything, every moment of the day, but he takes the ice here in Beijing, and he doesn’t feel anything. He feels hollowed out, a ringing emptiness in his chest and brain where usually there’s nothing but racing, constant sound. He can’t figure out if it’s good or bad for a long moment, but the music starts, and Yuuri just feels his program. He hears his music, but not the crowd. He hears his heartbeat, but not his panic. 

Yuuri thinks, maybe, that this is what confidence is, but he’s not sure.

Yuuri just feels his program and a handful of rogue thoughts. 

_ Stupid Viktor _ , he thinks. Not even mad at him. Maybe fond.

_ What if I did a quad flip? _

He’s got okay scores from the day before, but he knows-- he  _ knows _ \-- that the rest of the competition is serious. All of the competition is always serious, but he knows to his bones that if he’s going to do this, he’s got to up his difficulty. Even if he’s never made the jump before and even if he flubbed them all in warmups. 

He’s pretty sure he’s got enough rotation on it, even though he falls. He’s up quick, though, and he skates the rest of the program and he’s holding himself in the final position when the arena erupts and--

He searches, for Viktor, and he catches sight of him, and he’s racing toward the kiss and cry and Yuuri is too and--

And the emptiness is gone and instead there’s something soaring in his chest as Viktor plunges out to meet him on the ice and he  _ kisses _ him. 

It’s his first kiss.

* * *

 

Viktor watches Yuuri and it’s like being  _ born _ . 

He has no other words for the feeling, the kind of soaring and newness. Something that opens him in his whole heart, his whole body. Yuuri is so raw, so open and truthful out there, on the ice. 

Yuuri struggles with his triple flip, but when he-- 

He gets the rotations and Viktor feels his hands bite into the barrier and he feels himself so proud, shaking with it, electric with it. The quad. Yuuri’s gone and mostly pulled off a  _ quad _ , the thing that lives at the end of Viktor’s name. 

Yuuri keeps doing this. First the banquet and then the video and now this. Yuuri, who keeps doing these things to show the world that he belongs to Viktor, Yuuri who uses an Alpha’s power to assert himself as belonging, instead of taking.

Yuuri makes Viktor’s heart stop, and he never minds. 

Yuuri finishes, a Viktor feels time spread out in front of him, forever. Yuuri, eyes wide, body heaving with exhaustion, sweat pouring from him. Neck and back stretched and vulnerable. 

Viktor wants to wrap him up in his arms. 

Time collapses. Viktor races, to the kiss and cry, and he can’t bear waiting anymore, he can’t bear subtlety, he can’t bear pretending. He dives forward-- he pursues. He catches Yuuri and they fall back and he kisses him, finally, at last.


	13. Chapter 13

Yuuri takes silver.

He stands on the podium beside Phichit, and he takes  _ silver _ . It’s cold and heavy in his hands. It’s a weight around his neck and he can’t--

The emptiness is gone, but Yuuri can’t tease apart the component parts of what he’s feeling now. This is overwhelming but in a new way, a different way. The cameras flash, and some of them are looking at him, he realizes. He’s not caught in the edge of other people’s glory--

Some of them are looking at him. 

He feels disconnected from his legs as he steps off the podium and he feels dizzy and overwhelmed when Viktor places his jacket over his shoulders, over the thin fabric of his costume. It feels immediately grounding. 

Viktor guides him past the press, making comments to them here and there, but he doesn’t make him say anything and he keeps him moving, until they’re out of the stadium and into a cab. 

Viktor shuts the door. Yuuri keeps looking at the medal in his hands, because nothing, none of this, none of it feels  _ real _ . 

Viktor gives the address to the driver, and then after a moment, he says, “ _ Ax, Yuratchka _ \--” He pauses. “You were  _ beautiful _ .”

Which is the moment that it all becomes too much for him, and Yuuri finds himself crying for the second time that day. 

And Viktor pulls him into his arms and Yuuri is home. Like walking under the cedar timbers of the inn, being in Viktor’s arms is home. Yuuri has a fleeting thought that maybe he forgot to take his blocker because he’s caught in the pine and sea salt and eucalpytus and ash and dark wood and  _ winter _ smell of Viktor and it’s all that’s there and it’s at the beating heart of Yuuri. It’s everything, and he’s never felt so  _ safe _ . VIktor holds his heaviness and he holds him while Yuuri cries. 

Viktor murmurs something, Yuuri can’t catch it. It’s soft though, and rich. It’s velvet, wrapping its way around him. The cab stops eventually, and Viktor loosens around him, to look at him with his clear, clear eyes. “My Yuuri,” he says, “let’s get some rest, yes?”

Yuuri nods. Viktor opens the door and helps him out of the cab. He pays the driver and he guides him through the hotel and to the elevator, up to their room. 

He opens the door and Yuuri steps into the room and he--

“I’m tired?” He says, softly, looking at Viktor. He realizes he’s not wearing his glasses, everything just a little soft and out of focus. 

“Yes,” Viktor says. “I imagine so.” He puts Yuuri’s bag down. He holds his shoulders, taller than him by just a few inches. He pushes the jacket of of his shoulders. “You should shower.”

“I should shower,” Yuuri says, again. 

Viktor smiles. “Do you need help?” 

“The zipper,” Yuuri says. 

Viktor nods. “Turn around,” he says. “I’ll get you some dinner while you shower.”   
There’s an opening, releasing feeling of the costume coming loose and slipping from his shoulders. 

Yuuri comes off the ice, at last.

* * *

 

Yuuri steps into the shower, shutting the door behind him, and Viktor lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

Yuuri is different after the podium than Viktor thought he would be. He’s not triumphant or dizzy, trembling with life and energy; Viktor thought that if anything could make Yuuri who he was at the banquet again, it would be a medal. But Yuuri goes from the kiss (oh, the kiss, where he melted, where he looked at him with such trusting and warm and liquid eyes) to the stand, where he practically dissociates. 

Yuuri surprises him every time. 

“Okay,” Viktor says, under his breath. “Okay.”

He orders in room service-- finds the thing the hotel kitchen makes that’s most similar katsudon, for victory-- and he paces the room for ten minutes, before he picks up the costume from the floor and--

He takes a deep, steadying inhale, the smell of Yuuri’s sweat filling his nose. The action of it is deeply strange to him, possessive in a way. He folds the costume and puts it in Yuuri’s luggage. They’ll have it cleaned back in Hasetsu. 

Viktor shrugs out of his coat and gloves and presses his hands to the middle of his suit, feeling the two buttons. 

Armor. Viktor’s always been one to wear armor.

Viktor lets his fingers rest on the buttons, and he hears Yuuri suddenly say, “Do you want to get comfortable?”

He’s wearing a towel. His hair is wet.

Viktor blinks a few times.

Viktor smiles. “I’m already comfortable,  _ lyubov moya _ .”

Yuuri’s brow furrows ever so slightly. “In your suit?” He asks. “I left warm water. You could shower.”   
Viktor feels his smile go a little softer. “I will,” he says. “Soon enough. We have dinner coming.”

Yuuri nods and pulls a t-shirt and sweats from his bag. Viktor turns to give him privacy, before Yuuri says, “You-- you kissed me.”

Viktor nods. “I did,” he says. 

Yuuri’s body is muscular and strong, flexing slightly in the light as he pulls the shirt over his head.

He flushes a little. 

“You didn’t-- I-- thank you,” he says, eventually. 

Viktor feels himself frown. “I kissed you. I wanted to,” he says. “I would kiss you again, if you would let me.”   
Yuuri goes from flushed to pale. “You don’t-- you don’t have to,” he says. 

_ Why can’t you hear me, you stubborn man? _ Viktor thinks. 

“Yuuri, I want to. I  _ want _ to. Do you not--” It knocks the breath out of him, and he rests his hand on his stomach. “Do you not want to?” 

Yuuri’s posture shifts, his face falls, and he opens his mouth, to say something, but there’s a knock on the door. 

Yuuri’s shoulders fall. 

He looks away. 

“I should get dressed,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. 

There’s the knock again.

“A minute!” Viktor calls out. 

“Yuuri,” he says, softly, but Yuuri looks away. Viktor bends, to reach his eyes. Reaches out to take his hand but hesitates, suddenly so afraid. “Did I-- did I assume too much? Do you not want--”   
“I want nothing else,” Yuuri says, his voice hard to hear, it’s so low. 

More knocking. 

“Just leave it at the door!” Viktor cries, before turning back to Yuuri, who is  _ hiding _ , who has curled away from Viktor as best he can, to escape his eyes. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, softly. “Please, can I--”   
“Viktor, get the door,” Yuuri interrupts, his voice still low and anxious. 

“Yuuri--”   
“Viktor, get the door,” Yuuri repeats, turning away as much as he can.

Viktor sighs, and he opens the door to grab plates and he turns back and Yuuri is still curled onto himself, looking away, so afraid.

VIktor puts the plates down on the desk beside the television, and he turns to look back at Yuuri, who he  _ loves _ and who seems to be terrified of something. Viktor wishes he could understand what. 

“I’m not playing,” is what he says, finally. “This is no game, to me, if that’s what you think.”   
Yuuri turns to look at him, and his eyes are bloodshot-- Viktor’s unsure if he’s cried more since the taxi or not. The air smells scorched, burnt. 

“I’ve never--” Yuuri chokes out, after a moment. “No one has ever...with me, before. A couple dates but they never went anywhere and-- never a  _ kiss _ and--”

Viktor feels it as a rush. Anger, that Yuuri has learned to be afraid of this and possessive pleasure that Viktor gets to teach him to kiss, to touch, to hold. He sidles up beside Yuuri and delicately takes his hand in his. Yuuri’s fingers curl around his own. 

Viktor reaches out, and forward, to let his fingers slide along Yuuri’s jaw, to slowly help Yuuri turn his face to his. 

“I want you,” he says. “I want to kiss you. I want to do more with you. I want to be close to you. I want to be with you as much as you will let me. And these things I will do, I will do them as slow as you like.”   
Yuuri looks at him, eyes warm and deep. Beautiful, electric Yuuri. 

Yuuri looks at his mouth, a flick of his eyes. He bites his lip, just a bit. 

He nods. 

Viktor brushes Yuuri’s hair from his face, his beautiful, round features more clearly in view.

“Come,” he says. “You should eat. You took a medal today; I know you must be exhausted.”


	14. Chapter 14

It changes.

The lines that were already blurred and strange, they become ever blurrier. Yuuri spends more time in Viktor’s room and Viktor spends more time in Yuuri’s space. Viktor leans against Yuuri and holds his hand and he lays his head on his shoulder, in his lap. He kisses him, sometimes, on the cheek or across the knuckles, very gingerly, and always in private. They bind and cling closer, and practice somehow becomes more physical. There is weight to their touches that wasn’t there before, something heavy that leaves Yuuri’s skin tingling. It leaves his nose tingling, too.

If one of Viktor’s shirts goes missing so that Yuuri might wake up in the night to smell it and think of him, so be it. 

Things are different. 

Yuuri is in the kitchen, washing an apple, when his mother says, softly, “We always hoped, for you and your sister.”

He turns off the tap and turns to look at her.

“Mom?” He asks.

She looks at him, her own eyes are warm and soft. She sighs, a little, before she says, “We always loved you, just the way you are, Yuuri. We were so scared that it would take  _ forever _ for other people to see it, too. And now you and Vicchan are around and you  _ smell _ like each other.” She sighs. She lays her hands on his shoulders, and she smiles at him a certain smile that--

It’s the same one before he goes to competitions, before they sent him off to Detroit, before his first day of school. It’s a little sad and soft, but mostly it’s so unbearably proud of him. 

Mom is an Alpha, like Yuuri is.

“Viktor is a  _ nice  _ boy,” she says. 

Yuuri feels his heart stutter, in his throat, before he nods a few times. His mother turns away, before adding, “Add another apple to the curry. Viktor likes it.”

“Yes, Mama,” he answers, washing two more. He chops them into even chunks and tosses them into a bowl, to be added toward the end of cooking. 

He washes his hands and pulls bowls from the cabinet-- personal bowls, for the family. 

Yuuri walks out of the kitchen and to Viktor’s room, where he’s sitting on the couch and looking at a video intently, writing notes into a small notebook. 

“Viktor,” Yuuri says, softly in the doorway.

Viktor looks up, his blue eyes fixing on him-- paying attention, because Yuuri has learned Viktor is  _ always _ paying attention to him. “ _ Yuratchka _ ?” he asks, his mouth comfortable and competent around the word, not clumsy as it is in Japanese. 

“Dinner,” Yuuri says. “Curry.”

Viktor smiles. “Of course,” he says. “I will finish, after we eat.”

He closes his laptop and bounds off the couch. Makkachin wags his tail, lazily, from where he lays on the floor. They walk, not together but-- they walk, together, to the table, and Viktor follows Yuuri into the kitchen to help grab bowls and plates, so that they can all sit together and eat, as a family.

A family that Viktor is a part of, Yuuri realizes, as he sits down beside him, on the other side of his mother. 

“Oh, Curry,” Viktor sighs, happily, taking a bite. “I love apples. Thank you.”

Beside him, Yuuri’s mother beams.

* * *

 

Rostelecom is strange, for Viktor, because these are very much  _ his _ competitors and less  _ Yuuri’s _ . Chris is here (fun Chris, adventurous Chris, eighteen hours of sixty-nineing in Berlin Chris) with Yuri (who has already insulted Yuuri six times since they’ve gotten here) and Leroy (arrogance incarnate and hardly worth remembering). Phichit, who Yuuri knows, is back and Yuuri seems to know Crispino but doesn’t seem to be friendly with him. 

Of course, they all  _ sort of _ know each other. It’s a small world, professional figure skating, and there’s precious little room at the top. But Viktor has fucked one of these people and nearly been in a barfight with another and Yuuri really only seems to be on first name basis with one of them, and that’s because apparently they used to be roommates. 

And what’s strange is that most of them still look at them like Viktor is the one to watch out for, not Yuuri. Yuuri is jetlagged, yes, and anxious like he is before every competition, but Yuuri has the medal from Beijing and Viktor hasn’t trained correctly in months and months.  Yuuri would mop the floor with him right now, and Viktor is sure that on his best days, Yuuri could mop the floor with Viktor at any point in the peak of his career. 

Viktor gets Yuuri up to his room safely, and Yuuri settles himself into the bed and Viktor-- 

Viktor throws an eye onto him, tangled in his blankets, before he heads down to the hotel bar to meet Chris. 

Chris has already had one martinis and is nursing his second when Viktor arrives. Immediately, Chris presses something bright green into his hand. Viktor takes a sip.

“A ‘Japanese Slipper,’” Chris comments. “It seemed fitting.”

Viktor shoots him a look. 

Chris shrugs. “You were a gloriously fun fuck buddy,” he says. “I hate to lose you.”

Viktor rolls his eyes. “You’ve been in a serious relationship for more than a year,” he says. “We stopped being fuck buddies in Paris and became just regular friends.”

Chris shrugs, again. It looks easy, but everything about Chris makes it look easy. 

“You’re competing tomorrow,” Viktor says.

“You’re not my coach,” Chris counters. “You’re  _ Yuuri’s _ coach.”

Viktor fixes his gaze on a spot on the bar. “I am,” he says. 

Chris raises an eyebrow. “And?” He asks. “You’ve been there for six months. You’ve had a--”   
“Please, no need to be crude,” he interrupts.

There’s a heavy, bounded silence, before Chris leans forward and says, “ _ Really?”  _ In an incredulous tone of voice.

Viktor knows exactly what Chris is asking, but he’ll be damned if he gives him the satisfaction of confirming it. 

“After the  _ banquet _ ?” Chris asks. “I’d assumed you’d be official by now.”

VIktor takes a sip of the cocktail a little quicker than he means to. “He’s-- we’re--” He pauses, looking for the right words. 

_ He’s so afraid; I can’t stand that he’s been afraid of me too, _ he nearly says. 

“We’re taking things slow,” he finally says. “Very slow.”

Chris smirks. “How are  _ you _ taking that, Viktor?”

Chris knows him really, really well. Chris is somehow, possibly, Viktor’s oldest, dearest friend. 

“I’m drinking in a hotel bar while he sleeps before a competition,” he answers. 

“That badly?” Chris replies.

Viktor finishes the cocktail, and he finally begins to feel the warm, glowing feeling of alcohol. Viktor closes his eyes. He remembers, after the morning jog, in the onsen at dawn. Yuuri’s back, Yuuri’s skin flushed, the  _ scent _ of Yuuri, in the water.

“He takes me seriously,” Viktor says. “Even when I’m  _ ridiculous _ .”

Chris raises both of his eyebrows.

“I love him,” Viktor says, softly, because it’s one thing to say it to himself, it’s another to tell someone else.

Chris sighs. Nods. 

“You do,” he replies. He glances over. “What about tomorrow?”   
“What about it?” Viktor asks. “Are you trying to ask if we’ll still be friends when my Yuuri mops the  _ rink _ with your perverse ass tomorrow?”   
“Something like that,” Chris replies. He is polite enough to not reciprocate the trash talk; Viktor is grateful. Yuuri would find out, somehow, and it would wind him up. Make him anxious. 

Viktor nods back. “Yes,” he says. “We’re competitors. This is a competition. We’ll still be friends.”   
Chris smiles. “Good,” he says. He yawns, theatrically. “I must retire,” he comments. “Big competition tomorrow. I hear someone’s boyfriend is planning to mop the rink with me.”

Viktor smiles. Waves him off. 

Closes his eyes, for just a moment, before he gets up from the bar and heads back to their room. 


	15. Chapter 15

Yurio is--

Yuuri sits with Viktor, and they cheer him as he takes the ice.

Yuuri remembers his senior debut. Anxiety, crackling anxiety, makes every moment of it sharp in his memory, still. Skating against his  _ heroes _ , against people he watched and imitated and worshipped-- Yuuri did this older than Yurio is doing this, but it still filled him with totalizing and awful fear.  

Yuuri can’t imagine how Yurio is feeling, and it’s easier to focus on that anxiety instead of all of the other anxiety. 

There’s so much riding on this and the thing is--

Yurio’s a  _ genius _ . He is-- he’s more technically diverse and skilled than Yuuri has ever been, potentially more than Viktor. And he moves-- he’s  _ luminous _ on the ice. He found  _ agape _ and the way he moves, there’s something delicate and steady. Something that could be destroyed, easily, but Yurio is stronger than that. Calmer, clearer.  

If Yuuri doesn’t go to Barecelona because Yurio goes instead, Yuuri understands why. 

If any of them go instead of him, Yuuri understands. 

There’s something is eating Yuuri, in the inside. A long, hungry snake that has crawled into his stomach and is resting there, something hideous that’s waiting to break out. He wants to vomit, he wants to scream, he wants to cry. It has to be excised or  _ exorcised _ or  _ something _ . 

They root for Yurio, who skates like light being passed around the inside of a crystal. 

Yurio shoots them both a  _ look _ when he steps off the ice. As if he needed their cheers-- as if they could somehow affect his performance.

This is, of course, when they get the phone call.

“Yuuri,” Mari says, on the end of the phone. “It’s about Viktor’s dog.”

Yuuri has to listen to the call and nod, and say, “He’ll be back soon.”

“Your competition,” Mari says, and Yuuri can see the face she’s making, he can see the way her hand is resting along her hairline, her eyes shut. Yuuri can hear in her voice her physical expression. 

“He’ll be back soon,” Yuuri says. “Just keep an eye on Makkachin.”

He hangs up and turns to Viktor, who’s chatting with Mila Babicheva in the corner.

“Viktor,” Yuuri says, “I need to talk to you about something in private.”   
MIla raises an eyebrow and Viktor looks at him, and nods. Follows him to a corner.

“Yuuri, what is this about?” He asks, his expression serious.

“Viktor-- Viktor, Makkachin ate something,” he says. “Something she wasn’t supposed to and--”   
Viktor loses all his color, suddenly. 

“She’s at the vet,” Yuuri says. “But they’re worried, because she’s so old and--”   
“But she’s okay,” Viktor says, seriously. “She’ll be okay, she’ll be fine, and then when you’ve won the cup, we’ll head back and she’ll be fine. She’ll meet us there.”

Yuuri swallows, his throat feeling suddenly raw. “Viktor,” he says, looking away from him, his waxy face and bright eyes.

“It’ll be fine,” Viktor says, again, and he reaches forward and takes both of Yuuri’s hands in his . 

Yuuri looks up at him. “I think you should go,” he says. “I think you should go see her.”   
Viktor’s color comes back, a little. He flushes, and looks surprised. 

“Yuuri,” he says, eyes going warm. “What about--”   
“I wasn’t  _ there _ ,” Yuuri says, looking at him. “When Vicchan-- I was so-- I wasn’t there. You should be. I’ll be fine.” 

Yuuri won’t be fine, but Vicchan-- Vicchan was a part of the family. A warm, bright thing in Yuuri’s life. Yuuri won’t be fine, but the competition is just a moment. Makkachin is such a part of Viktor’s life, and Yuuri is really just passing through. Yuuri lost Vicchan and if Viktor loses Makka? Without even saying  _ goodbye _ ?

“You have to go,” Yuuri says, again, more sure of it this time. “You have to. I’ll be fine.”   
Viktor’s color goes again, and he nods, after a moment. “Are you sure? Yuuri, I--”   
“It’s Makka,” Yuuri says. 

Viktor looks at him, warmly, softly, before he dashes forward and brushes Yuuri’s hair from his eyes. He cradles his face, gently. Viktor is tall, a few inches taller than Yuuri. This close, Yuuri can imagine leaning forward and nesting carefully into the space under his chin, so close to him. This close, Yuuri can smell the winter and trees smell of him, just barely. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, softly, like his name might be a prayer. He leans forward through the bare inches between them and kisses him, ever so carefully, right above his brows. 

Yuuri feels a warm, calm feeling spread through him. Something not quite contented, but something full to the seams with rightness. There’s something very correct about about it, something Yuuri can’t name but that he knows is part of that Alpha feeling that’s lurking under his skin. 

Viktor pulls away, and looks at him, and Yuuri sees that terribly  _ vulnerable  _ thing that’s always right underneath Viktor in his eyes. 

Viktor, afraid to stay, afraid to go. 

“Let me-- let me talk to-- to Yakov,” he says, quickly. “He’ll take care of you and Yurio, he’ll--”

“Viktor, I’ll be fine,” Yuuri says. “Go.”

Viktor nods, again, and he turns and jogs over to Mila, and then they rush off elsewhere together. 

Tomorrow, Yuuri is going to skate his free program, without Viktor.

The twisting animal in his gut opens its terrible mouth, huge. 

Yuuri closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. 

This is the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (lol: it was not a flashback i just TRAGICALLY misread some stuff and misplaced who was at which competition. whatever. for the sake of this, chris is at beijing)


	16. Chapter 16

Viktor can’t think. He can’t see, he can’t hear, he can’t feel, anything. Viktor is insensate and uncomfortable, everything feels surrounded by some kind of fog or wool. This isn’t what panic feels like; this is something else, something unpleasant and cold. Dull and slowing and awful, making it hard for him to use his hands, to focus his eyes, to lift his leaden tongue from the bottom of his mouth and ask the flight attendant for water. 

He can’t figure out if the feeling is leaving Yuuri or what might have happened to Makkachin. 

It’s almost twenty hours of traveling. He did the math; he’ll be over the sea when Yuuri takes to the ice. Moscow to Shanghai; Shanghai to Tokyo; Tokyo to Saga. 

He’s never had a feeling like this before. This is different, cloudy and indistinct and wrong. 

Viktor gets from connecting flight to connecting flight until finally he touches earth at Saga, and then he grabs the train heading into Hasetsu. 

More than twenty hours later, he’s face to face with Mari and his dog in the train terminal.

Viktor nearly collapses, greeting her. She licks his face and wags her tail and  _ arfs! _ Happily. He laughs, and then he cries, and then he laughs more. He takes her lead from the floor and stands, and wipes his face. Mari sighs. Smiles a little. 

“Come on,” she says. “Get some sleep. Yuuri will be home is eighteen hours.”

Viktor nods, loosely, before asking, “How did he do?”

Mari smiles. Mari looks so  _ different _ from Yuuri. Her features are from her parents as obviously as Yuuri’s, but she wears them differently. She wears them with a different ease-- not confidence but a lack of  _ fear _ . 

“He missed you,” she says, obliquely. “But he did well. He did  _ really  _ well.” She hands him her phone, the video already pulled up. 

Mari is being kind. Yuuri’s jumps are inconsistent, like they always are. He touches ice at one point, and Viktor can’t help the hiss that escapes from between his teeth. He looks wrecked when he’s finished, panting and sweating. 

“ _ Ax _ ,  _ Yuratchka _ ,” he murmurs. “Where is your stamina now?”

And the scores roll in and--

Viktor turns to Mari, and he feels his smile reflected on her. 

“He did it,” he says. “He’s going to-- Mari, he’s going to do it. He’s going to go to the Final, and Mari-- Mari--”

Mari rolls her eyes. “I know,” she says. “He did it. Come on, you’re making a scene in the station. Be gay for my little brother at home.”

Viktor and Makka follow her from the airport to her car, which is small and has the inn’s logo imprinted on the side. Viktor can’t stop watching the performance, watching Yuuri get lectured by Yakov in the kiss and cry, Yuuri hugging him. Exhaustion written on his weary features. 

Viktor wants to smooth the anxiety from his brow. Wants to kiss him and protect him, tell him how  _ well _ he did. 

Yuuri’s going to the Grand Prix. 

Viktor blinks, drowsily. He sits in the back with Makka, her head in his lap. He feels her curls in his fingers and the warm, steady weight of her. A constant in his life since he was thirteen, more affectionate than his parents and more constant. Makkachin, his family.

He looks at the back of Mari’s head, in the car, and he says, “I hope my intentions have been clear.”

Mari looks at him, in the rearview window, an eyebrow raised.

“I love him,” Viktor says. 

“We know,” Mari answers. “Believe me. You have not been subtle.”

Viktor finds himself laughing. 

“We were worried,” she continues. “Yuuri is...different.”

Viktor feels the weight of that for a moment. Yuuri is different. Yuuri is nervous; he’s anxious and winds himself up, keeps himself from sleeping. He’s perceptive, he’s gentle, he’s kind, he’s warm. He sees Viktor for who he is, and from how he skated his program, Viktor knows he always has. Yuuri who is so strong but in his own way.

“I wouldn’t want him any other way,” he says.

“Good,” Mari answers.

* * *

 

It’s a long flight. It was a long flight there, but it’s longer back without Viktor. Viktor’s shoulder to fall asleep on, Viktor to talk to flight attendants, Viktor to hold his tickets, to show him things on his phone. 

Yuuri’s tired, but he can’t sleep. He mostly laid awake in the hotel room after the competition, restlessness ringing under his eyes. The taste of the pirozhki a warm memory, something open and soft between him and Yuri now. Something  _ shared _ .

_ My grandpa made them _ , Yuri had said, and he’d looked so vulnerable. It had been so kind.

Not enemies, but not quite friends.

Yuuri steps off the plane in Saga and--

Viktor and Makkachin are there. They stand, at the gateway between the terminal and the waiting area and Yuuri falls through space to get to him, rushes through and Viktor is so steady and warm and solid in his arms. Makkachin  _ borks! _ Beside them, happily. 

“You did it!” Viktor says, and Yuuri can feel his warm smile. “You did it-- I have notes but I can’t imagine I have anything to say Yakov didn’t. Yuuri-- my Yuuri, you did it!”

“I’m so proud of you,” Viktor says. “I’ve been thinking what I can do as your coach, from now on.”

Yuuri pulls away from him, to hold him by the shoulders at arm’s length, to look at him, his blue eyes surprised and overwhelmed. 

“I want to you to coach me until I retire,” Yuuri says. “Please.”

He means it.

And Viktor takes his hand from his shoulder and kisses his knuckles gently. “It’s almost like a marriage proposal,” he says, his voice full and warm and soft. 

Yuuri pulls him back into a hug. “Viktor,” Yuuri says softly. “Viktor, please-- please, I’m so tired. Let’s go home. Take me home.”

“Of course,” Viktor says. “The champion needs his rest” 

Yuuri laughs, and that tired feeling eases out of himself into something contented and warm. 

“The train ride isn’t long at all,” Viktor says. “You can doze and then we’ll get you something to eat and then you’ll go to bed.”

Yuuri nods, and sighs, long and soft. They get his luggage and take a cab to the train station and Yuuri doesn’t have to talk to anyone or even really think. It’s not like he can-- he’s so  _ tired _ . The competition exhaustion is crashing through him with a vengeance and Viktor doesn’t seem to mind as Yuuri curls up beside him and Makkachin and falls, mercifully, asleep. It will be a good nap before he gets home, and when he does, there will be more rest. 


	17. Chapter 17

Yuuri’s so tired. Viktor wakes him up at the station and they stumble out of the train. He guides him to the parking lot, to the inn’s car parked in a small space, and he opens the door for him. Yuuri laughs a little as he sits down and buckles his seatbelt. Viktor guides Makkachin to the backseat. 

Viktor sits down in the driver’s seat, beside Yuuri.

“I didn’t realize you were allowed to drive here,” Yuuri says.

Viktor shrugs. “It’s  _ driving. _ How hard could it be?”

Viktor sticks the key in the ignition and Yuuri finds himself frowning. “Wait, Viktor, no, I--”

“Your sister said it was fine,” Viktor says. “And it’s just to the Inn. You can’t drive right now and Mari had to work.”

Yuuri takes a long, deep breath. He bites his bottom lip. “Viktor, I don’t know--”   
“Yuuri,” Viktor says, softly, “Trust me. Just close your eyes and it will fly by.”

Yurri looks over at him.

“I’ll be safe, I promise,” Viktor says. 

Yuuri nods, and Viktor pulls out of the space and Yuuri lets his eyes slip closed. Viktor hums under his breath a little, something Yuuri thinks might be “Bolero.” He hums the notes a little out of key, his tempo off. He comments a few times in Russian, off-handedly, Yuuri’s not sure about what. 

Yuuri murmurs, suddenly, “I’m sorry I touched the ice.”

There’s a pause, before Viktor says, “I have notes for you. I think maybe it would be better if we went through them when you weren’t so tired. You are hardly keeping your eyes open, my Yuuri.”

Yuuri feels himself hum in agreement. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, because he means it. 

Another long moment, before Viktor says, “Why?”

Yuuri  _ sighs _ . “You worked so hard. I wanted it to be perfect.”

“Oh, my Yuuri,” Viktor says, very softly. “Do not do these for me. You skate, and this is so much. Already, you skate, and it is more than I could dream to ask for.”

Yuuri opens his eyes, and he looks over at Viktor, who is concentrating on driving. His brow his furrowed, facing forward, alert. Yuuri blinks a few time, lazy and heavy.

The car stops. Viktor looks down at him, and smiles. 

“We’re here!” He exclaims. 

Yuuri smiles back. He climbs out of the car, Viktor holding the door open for him. Makkachin bounds off into the inn. Viktor grabs his bag from the trunk and they walk, together, inside.

“Yuuri!” his mother greets, leaning from the kitchen. “Congratulations!” 

“Thank you, Ma,” Yuuri calls back. He yawns. 

“You need to eat,” Viktor says. “Eat and then go to bed.” He ushers him over to a table and Yuuri sits down. After a moment, Viktor slides a bowl in front of him-- not katsudon, but a bowl of miso soup. Yuuri sighs, appreciatively. Traveling upsets his stomach. This will sit gently on his system. 

He eats quickly, efficiently, and then Viktor helps him back up and off to his room. Yuuri leans into him, and Viktor doesn’t seem to mind, chuckling a little. He opens his door and helps him into his room. Yuuri sits down on his bed heavily, and he looks back up at Viktor. 

“Do you have everything?” Viktor asks. 

Yuuri nods. 

“I have my phone,” Viktor says. “If you need anything. I am right next door.”

Yuuri nods. 

Viktor smiles at him, again. 

“Rest well,” he says, before he slips out of the room. Yuuri watches him go.

Yuuri stands back up and takes off his shirt and his jeans, just staying in his underwear. He wraps himself in his blankets and settles in. The sheets are cold against his skin. He blinks a few more times, before he grabs his phone from his nightstand. 

He looks at Viktor’s name for a long time before he sends the message--  _ Viktor _ .

A moment, before Viktor sends back,  _ Yuuri? What do you need _

Yuuri sighs. Rolls onto his back. 

_ My bed is cold _ , he sends.  _ Wish it were warmer. _

There’s a long moment, before there’s a knock on his door.

“Come in,” Yuuri says.

Viktor slips inside quickly. He looks--

Confused. Vulnerable.  _ Nervous _ .

“Yuuri?” He asks.

“Viktor,” Yuuri says, already sinking deeper into his mattress. “Please.”

He doesn’t have to ask twice. Viktor carefully crosses the room and sits down on the bed beside him. Yuuri reaches up and tugs on his sleeve, and eventually, Viktor lays down beside him, looking at him. His blue eyes are suddenly unreadable. Maybe this was a mistake-- too much, he read into it, wanted things that weren’t there. 

But Viktor blinks heavily himself, and Yuuri blinks back. 

“You smell different,” Viktor says. “After travel.”

Yuuri nods. “I can’t smell anything. I take a stronger dose when I fly. I can’t smell  _ you _ .”

Viktor reaches into the bare distance between them. It’s not very large at all; Yuuri’s childhood bed is not very big. Just a few inches, between their bodies. Yurri reaches there, too, and takes Viktor’s hand carefully. His long fingers are cool to the touch.

“What do I smell like?” Viktor asks, softly. 

Yuuri takes a deep breath, remembering. “Like winter,” he says after a long time. “Like cold air and salt and wood. You smell strong. Like strength.”

Viktor’s eyes flit from his face to their held hands. Viktor moves, and kisses Yuuri’s fingertips again. His fingertips tingle. 

“You smell like spring,” Viktor says, chuckling. “Green plants and soft things. I loved it about you when I met you first. How you smell like things that are new.”

His eyes are wide and honest. 

No one has ever looked at him like this before. 

“Viktor,” Yuuri says, his voice hardly above a whisper.

“ _ Да, любовь моя?, _ ” he answers, his own voice low, his eyes fixed on him. 

“Viktor, can I kiss you?” he asks.

Viktor’s eyes close, blissfully. “Yes,” he answers. “Yes, my love.”

Yuuri moves carefully, cupping Viktor’s face in his hands. He leans, uncomfortably, onto his own forearm, propping himself up. He leans up and over and he kisses Viktor, carefully, on the lips. 

Viktor sighs into the kiss, happily. Yuuri feels something like warm television static blossom out from the point of contact, fill him totally up. Something courses through him, suddenly, something he’s never felt before. 

He pulls away, and he looks at Viktor and Viktor looks back at him and Yuuri feels a sound tumblr out of the bottom of his throat, something purring and strange and contented. It matches that fuzzy and syrupy feeling that’s in his blood now, and he feels like he has to  _ do _ something, he  _ needs _ something but things keep sliding in and out of focus. He needs Viktor, Viktor, Viktor, but he can’t figure out what that  _ means _ what--

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, very softly. “My Yuuri. I didn’t realize how tired you were. Come, come, sleep.”

Yuuri looks at him, dumbstruck, before nodding twice. Viktor tugs his arm a little, and Yuuri eases back down, into the blankets. He keeps looking at Viktor, Viktor who is his whole world. 

Viktor pulls in close to him. He wraps him in his arms, and this feels so right and so good, too. Yuuri realizes that he has never belonged anywhere like he belongs in Viktor’s arms. 

“Viktor,” Yuuri sighs, once more, before falling asleep at last. 


	18. Chapter 18

Viktor watches Yuuri come awake.

Viktor has woken up every day at five am since he was four, and a habit of twenty-three years is hard to break. It’s shifted slightly since he’s been coaching, but he’s usually up either around sunrise or just before it, and now is no exception. 

The early morning light catches against Yuuri’s shades, painting the room in cool, blue light. Yuuri’s hair looks darker and his skin looks paler. Asleep, his normally furrowed brow is relaxed and unknit. His dark lashes rest against his full cheeks. His pink mouth is slack, relaxed. 

Viktor watches Yuuri sleeping and marvels; Viktor watches Yuuri transition to waking and he adores.

His eyes scrunch up, and then his nose. He rolls his neck and shoulders and he yawns and sighs, biting his lower lip. He very slowly blinks awake, squinting without his glasses, squinting in the light. 

“VIktor,” he says, and it sounds as utterly warm and full as it did last night. Weighty and meaningful, a whole sentence.

Yuuri says his name like it’s a full sentence, and Viktor loves that.

“My Yuuri,” VIktor answers. “Good morning.”

Yuuri smiles, so  _ easily _ . VIktor didn’t realize how breathlessly easy a smile could look before this moment, especially for Yuuri, who always seems to feel happiness with no small degree of anguish beforehand. The smile slides over him like a flower blooming, like the sun rising. 

Nestled in his bedclothes, Yuuri smells less like antiseptic atmosphere and the general buzz of travel and much more like himself. Lemongrass forward and something floral behind, something terribly sweet and fresh. Viktor revels in it. 

“Good morning,” Yuuri replies. He blinks a few times, before letting his eyes rest closed. “You’re not going to make me get out of my very comfy bed and go for a run, are you?” He asks.

Viktor laughs, the sound burbling up from his chest. “No,” he says. “Not today, I think. I think today we stay in bed.”

Yuuri’s warm, brown eyes slide open. He smiles, ever so slightly mischievous. “We?” he asks.

“I should hope so,” Viktor answers. 

Yuuri smiles again, this time to himself, Viktor realizes. 

He curls closer to him under the blankets, his body a warm current beside him. 

“You kissed me, last night,” Viktor says. 

Yuuri opens his eyes again, and Viktor realizes immediately that this was the wrong thing to say. He can see the wheels turning, the sharp panic overtaking the easiness, the laziness. 

“I was hoping you could kiss me some more,” he says, quickly. 

A different smile, one that is nervous. It curls the corners of his mouth in a different way, flits across his eyes differently. 

Viktor would spend his whole life happily cataloguing the minutiae of Yuuri’s smiles. 

“Really?” Yuuri asks, his voice terribly soft.

“Really,” Viktor answers.

Yuuri’s eyes glide closed again--  _ bliss _ .

A vulnerable as the dawnlight, Yuuri leans over and kisses him, again.

It as a gentle as the last time, as warm. It passes that electric feeling back through Viktor, that racing and alive feeling. The feeling that maybe Viktor never truly woke up until Yuuri kissed him, until Yuuri touched him, until Yuuri knew him. 

Viktor, who was never alive until Yuuri knew him. 

Viktor reaches up, to cradle Yuuri’s face, to hold him. 

Yuuri, in turn, bites his lip, almost shyly, before darting his tongue along the space where their lips meet. 

Viktor opens his mouth, to let Yuuri deepen the kiss, and Yuuri sighs into it, something happy and contented free between them. 

They kiss, their breaths becoming shorter, and before long, Viktor pulls away to look at him, his lips somehow pinker, fuller, his bedhead differently mussed now. 

Viktor looks up at him, in wonder, and he asks, “Yuuri, may I touch you?”

Yuuri’s eyes drift closed again, and his wavering and easy smile returns. 

“Yes,” he answers. 

Viktor slides up, sitting up, and Yuuri moves back. He reaches gingerly forward and he cradles Yuuri’s face in his hands, to look at his eyes, to look at his skin, to look at his nose and his cheeks and his mouth.

He kisses him again, and he lets his hands slide over his shoulders and to his back, where he can feel Yuuri’s strong muscles and curved ribs. He slides his hand over his heart, to feel it beating, to feel his pulse speed as Viktor kisses him. He lets his hands slip lower, to rest just over his hips, the bones hidden by that last bit of fat he couldn’t shake, the shape of him just so round and full and  _ plush _ . Yuuri who is soft instead of sharp. 

His Yuuri. 

Yuuri’s own hands reach forward, curled inward into clenching fists holding nothing but air. His nails rest on Viktor’s pectorals, scratching ever so slightly. They stay there for a while, before moving down, to rest right on his waist. The feeling recalls Soichi with a vividness that could make Viktor cry. Dancing with each other, even now. 

Viktor pulls away from Yuuri’s mouth and he ducks to kiss at the space in his clavicle, the vulnerable place where his bones and joints connect. Yuuri huffs a short breath, and Viktor kisses him further down, down his chest. 

Yuuri ducks, though, to catch his mouth again, and after a brief moment, he turns his head and kisses his jaw, on the space right where his neck and head join. He kisses and he kisses down a little, and a little more, and a little more, and the finally, Yuuri is kissing and  _ sucking _ , and it feels so  _ good _ , so bright, so sharp. Viktor gasps-- this is electric but this is not a shock, this is  _ lightning. _ Yuuri’s teeth graze there, the side of his neck, just barely, and Viktor feels his voice tumble out of his mouth. 

Yuuri stops, pulls away, his eyes wide with fear.

“Did I hurt you?” He asks.

Viktor shakes his head, laughs, as for some reason tear spring in his eyes. “ _ Нет, нет, _ ” he says. “No-- no, Yuuri. You did not. You did not.”

Yuuri nods, as if unsure, as if reassuring himself. 

“I never want to hurt you,” he says, softly. 

Viktor feels himself laughing, feels himself crying, feels himself alive and overwhelmed and painfully in love.

“ _ я знаю, _ ” he says. 

_ I know, I know.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i sware they're gonna fUCk eventually but for now i guess they're just gonna continue to be very soft and very in love


	19. Chapter 19

Viktor starts crying.

Yuuri has never really gotten this far with someone else before, and there’s a lot of things he knows he doesn’t know. These things have been part of an unending anxiety loop for him-- what does he know he doesn’t know and what can he do about it. Yuuri hasn’t been sure what’s normal for a lot of this, but he does know that  _ crying  _ is generally a red flag.

Viktor is crying, but he also smiling and laughing, and he hasn’t pulled away from Yuuri. 

Yuuri feels his hands shake as he reaches out, gently, to wipe the tears away from Viktor’s face. He feels the salt of his tears left behind as the water evaporates and he feels the warmth of Viktors skin tingle at the tips of his fingers. 

Yuuri stops kissing him, incandescently unsure. 

Viktor laughs breaks through, and he opens his blue, blue eyes to look at Yuuri so fondly, Yuuri thinks he might burst into flames. 

“I know,” he says, his nose stuffy, his voice crackling. “I know, Yuuri.” He reaches out and tangles his fingers into Yuuri’s hand. He laughs again. “I know.” He murmurs something in Russian, loosely, before he says, “You have never made me fear you would.” 

Yuuri leans forward, and rests his forehead on Viktor’s shoulder. Viktor throws his arms around him and holds him close. 

Yuuri is close to Viktor, and Viktor’s voice is soft near his ear.

“Did I tell you?” he asks. “I cut my hair-- did I tell you why?”

Yuuri pulls away, and he shakes his head. 

Viktor smiles, laughs. 

“Zhenya,” he says. “My first boyfriend. No one had ever wanted to kiss me before, and I liked being kissed. And he and I-- we kissed and we did a little more and-- I was running late, to practice. I was getting dressed, leaving my apartment. We had a fight, about me practicing-- he didn’t think it was  _ appropriate _ . He was, mmm, he was old-fashioned. I thought it was cute. I was just seventeen but I had been living alone in St. Petersburg for a year or so and-- he was in my place and I was leaving and he--” Viktor laughs, again, but this is different. Hard. “I was leaving and he told me to give him a goodbye kiss and I told him to go fuck himself and he, ay, Yuuri it’s so stupid, it’s so  _ stupid _ .”

“Viktor,” Yuuri says, very softly. 

“He pulled, and it  _ hurt _ and I realized that-- that they loved it because it was leash. They loved me-- Zhenya loved me because I wore my own leash,” he continues. “So I cut it off.” Viktor laughs again, a different laugh, again. Viktor laughs so many ways, for so many reasons, and Yuuri just wishes he could make it so that Viktor would only laugh with joy, instead of in this bitter way. 

“You never asked me for a leash,” he says. “And I never had to be scared you would hurt me.”

Yuuri nods a few times, something weighing his tongue down. Something ruthlessly heavy. 

Yuuri holds his hand though, and he thinks that maybe this is enough. 

“I love you,” Yuuri says.

“I love you,” Viktor replies.

It’s quiet between them for a long time, before there’s a knock on the door.

Yuuri turns to look at it, startled.

“Breakfast!” Mari calls. “Be quick or I’ll eat it all!”

Yuuri turns back to Viktor, and he smiles, unsurely. 

“Have breakfast with me? And my family?” He asks.

“Of course,” Viktor answers, his gaze soft, his tears nearly dry. "Nothing would make me happier."


	20. Chapter 20

Things are different, but the same, even more so. 

Viktor stays in Yuuri’s personal space, and Yuuri doesn’t mind. Viktor stays in Yuuri’s room, too, the salt and winter smell of him slowly easing into his bedsheets, soaking into Yuuri’s skin. Yuuri starts using Viktor’s shampoo, starts shrugging into his jackets in the morning. Viktor keeps him on the ice, his tone stern and firm as it ever is, but he also embraces him so easily, like it’s the most natural thing to do in the world. Yuuri runs drills and he runs the program. They analyze his tapes and they practice and practice and practice the quad flip. Yuuri begins to feel the sensation of Viktor’s hands on his hips when he jumps, when he turns; a ghost of a touch, a memory. Hears his voice in his ears, feels him guiding him. 

Viktor surrounds Yuuri and Yuuri’s never felt such peace. 

Yuuri lands out of the quad easily, as lightly as he ever could and he turns to look at Viktor. 

“I think I’ve got it,” he says. 

Viktor smiles. “Your confidence,” he says, chuckling. “I  _ know _ you have got it. You look beautiful.” He embraces him, and Yuuri hugs back. It’s been a long day. Early morning. Late lunch. The sun is beginning to set and it’ll be dark soon. “We should go home. Eat dinner and rest.”

Yuuri nods. “I’ll just hit the shower,” he says.

Viktor’s cool blue eyes assess him for a moment, before he says, “Care if I join you?”

The question is both so innocent, said so lightly, but also decidedly meaningful. They’ve been touching; keeping near each other, sleeping with each other. They’ve been kissing. But things haven’t quite gotten further than that,  _ yet _ .

This is not a question about showering; this is a question about something else.

Yuuri feels his breath stutter for a moment. Caught off guard.

He looks at Viktor. 

Viktor is wearing a close-cut grey shirt. Yuuri can see the firm shape of his chest and back underneath it, muscles lean but clear. He has a sweatshirt tied around his waist, his hips looking bigger, rounder. Leggings under shorts make the muscles in his thighs and calves clear. Yuuri has thought about Viktor’s body and Viktor’s body under his clothes for a very long time, and even though Yuuri has seen Viktor naked several times by this point, the thought of Viktor peeling himself out of his workout clothes to shower in the tiled stalls here at the Ice Castle--

The thought of Yuuri peeling him out of his clothes, bringing his beautiful body to sight--

Yuuri swallows dryly. 

He nods. “No one here, this time of day,” he says. His voice doesn’t crack; a minor victory.

Viktor smiles. 

They glide off the ice and tug off their skates. Yuuri hobbles over to the locker room, Viktor supporting him. Yuuri feels the press of his feet against the concrete floor, joints settling back into place after being held by the skates, pressure points shifting. He hisses. 

Viktor tuts, murmurs something in Russian. They switch the lights on in the locker room and Yuuri settles on a bench, begins pulling off his socks. 

Viktor moves to pull of his shirt and Yuuri reaches out, stops his hand.

Viktor looks down at him. “Yuuri?” he asks. 

Viktor’s voice sounds different, just saying his name and nothing else. No other words to contextualize it, Yuuri can still hear his accent and the particular care Viktor seems to take with his name. Pronounced so deliberately, so clearly. 

Yuuri stands, his feet aching. “Please,” he says, and his voice sounds rough and deep to his own ears. “May I?”

Viktor looks and Yuuri’s hands, and then up at him. He nods, the barest quirk of his head. 

Yuuri unties the sweatshirt from Viktor’s waist. Lets it fall. Yuuri curls his fingers under the edge of Viktor’s shirt, carefully tugs it up. Viktor ducks his head a bit, and emerges from under his clothes. He’s still flushed a little, skin slightly damp with sweat. Sea-salt and eucalyptus and-- plums? Something new, in the scent of Viktor, who is nothing if not mercurial.

Yuuri has that thought and then realizes that Viktor might be sudden and shifting and changing, but he is also  _ constant _ . Constant in his affections for Yuuri. His  _ desire _ for Yuuri. 

Yuuri holds Viktor’s muscular shoulders in his hands and looks at him, and he realizes that Viktor changes every day, but this whole time he has been someone who wants Yuuri, and who wants Yuuri for who he is. Viktor is changing in everything but  _ love _ .

This is what love is.

Yuuri’s hands tremble where they reach to brush Viktor’s hair (longer now than it was months before, well over his ears and making a break for his chin) away from his eyes. Viktor closes his eyes, expression so fond. Yuuri brings Viktor down a bit, and they kiss each other, different but the same from the other kisses they have had. Viktor’s hands eventually drift to Yuuri’s waist, and after a long moment, Yuuri’s hand drift down to Viktor’s, to tug at his leggings and shorts. 

Clumsily, they undress each other, their sweat-and-self smells filling the locker room. They fumble, laughing a little, into one of the low, small shower stalls. Yuuri turns on the water, and Viktor shrieks and laughs in the icy spray. Yuuri feels his body cool down suddenly, and then the water heats back up. Viktor’s mouth slides down his neck, to his clavicle, to suck vividly over his pulse. Yuuri gasps and Viktor chuckles. Yuuri slides his hands down Viktor’s wet, hard body and he can feel the race and thunder of Viktor’s blood under his skin, following his touch. Yuuri’s hands rest over Viktor’s hips, and Viktor rolls them, suddenly, a smooth, incredible feeling. A motion that makes something in Yuuri rush and falter, overwhelmed.

“Touch me,” Viktor says. “Yuuri, I want you to touch me.”

Yuuri feels his grip over Viktor’s hips go tight. Viktor moves, thrusting his back into the tiled wall of the shower, Yuuri crowded in close to him. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor breathes. “Dreamt of you. For so long. Please.” 

Yuuri smooths his thumb over Viktor’s hipbones. Viktor’s fingernails are pinpoints of stinging pleasure on Yuuri’s back. 

Yuuri closes his eyes and leans in close to Viktor, to smell him, to touch him, to be near him, to be part of him. Yuuri lets his hands move, down Viktor’s thighs, feeling that muscle. Yuuri lets his hands rest in that vulnerable place between Viktor’s thighs, where his skin is soft, Yuuri’s hands tingle and ache to do more. 

Overwhelmed.

Viktor’s hands move, too, and soon they are resting over Yuuri’s. 

Viktor’s hands move, with Yuuri’s.

The space between them is nearly nonexistent, pressed against each other, aching, wanting.

Yuuri’s hand moves with Viktor’s. 

“I’ve--” Yuuri says. “I’ve  _ never _ .”

“Do you want to?” Viktor whispers back.

“More than anything,” Yuuri replies.

Viktor’s hand carefully moves, and Yuuri’s hand moves with him, and Yuuri finds that he is holding Viktor Nikiforov’s cock.

And he finds that Viktor Nikiforov is holding  _ his _ .

Overwhelmed, by everything, all around him. 

It’s all almost too much. Under the warm spray of the shower, Viktor’s mouth seeking his skin, Viktor’s long-fingered hand gripping his cock, Viktor’s cock in Yuuri’s own. 

Viktor hard, in Yuuri’s hand. 

Yuuri opens his eyes under the rivulets of water rolling down his face. In that interrupted vision, he can see the shape and curvature and peculiarities of Viktor’s cock in his hand. Yuuri jacks Viktor’s cock a few times, almost experimentally.

“Yes,” Viktor breathes. 

Viktor moves his hand and Yuuri feels his blood jump through himself; feels his hand go loose with surprise. 

Viktor takes himself from Yuuri. Yuuri comes in closer. Viktor does, too. 

Viktor moves, both of them at the same time. Viktor moves both of them, and Yuuri feels his head roll back, his shaking arms and hands take Viktor closer to himself.

“Viktor,” Yuuri says, and he feels his name like a jewel on his tongue.

“My Yuuri,” Viktor says. “I’m-- close. Are you? Come. Come for me-- Yuuri, come.”

Yuuri realizes the ringing in his ears is the sound of his voice. 

This is different. 

It washes over and through him. Stutters his heartbeat in his chest and cuts the tension from his muscles and body. 

Yuuri feels everything. Alongside him, leaning against him, with him, Yuuri feels Viktor come apart, too.

“Viktor,” Yuuri says. “Viktor.”

He kisses him. 

Viktor pulls away, says something Yuuri can’t quite catch, something in Russian. Yuuri looks down, and washing away in the spray of the shower is come; Yuuri doesn’t know if its his or Viktor’s. 

Yuuri doesn’t know where he ends and Viktor begins. 

Yuuri pushes Viktor’s wet hair out of his eyes. Viktor’s blue eyes.

Viktor’s expression is so loose. So open, so free, so adoring. 

“Yuuri,” he murmurs. He laughs. “We have to  _ shower _ .”

Yuuri laughs too. They kiss, in the shower, the water beginning to cool.


	21. Chapter 21

They keep having sex. Viktor has a boyfriend that he can’t stop kissing and that he can’t stop  _ fucking _ . In the showers at the rink; in Yuuri’s bedroom, in Viktor’s bedroom. In late nights, in early mornings, in the afternoons. Viktor’s never had so much sex in his life, and the thing is, he loves it. 

Yuuri touches him, every time, like it’s the first time touching him. His hands are, as ever, unbearably soft and gentle. He kisses Viktor, every time, like he couldn’t imagine doing something so wonderful. Yuuri, every time, has sex with him and is so focused and  _ joyful _ and wonderful the whole time. 

Viktor has a boyfriend he can’t stop kissing, he can’t stop fucking, and his boyfriend is also the best skater he’s ever seen. 

Yuuri keeps skating and Viktor, to watch him take the ice, has never been so in love. 

Yuuri lands his quad, again, and Viktor cheers him, from the edge. He skates out to meet him, and he holds him tight and close. “You’re ready,” he says. 

“My landing is still shaky,” Yuuri says. “And my timing needs more work and--”

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, and he pushes Yuuri’s hair out of his eyes, holds his round face in his hands, and looks at him.  _ Looks _ at him. “My Yuuri, you’re ready. You’re  _ ready _ .”

Yuuri smiles at him, his flustered, overwhelmed sort of way. “Two weeks,” he says. 

Yuuri takes a deep breath, and his ribs spread and separate, his chest rises and it falls. He nods. 

“Two weeks,” he repeats. 

“You’re ready,” Viktor says. “It’s just finishing touches now.” 

Yuuri nods. 

“We’re going to do this,” Yuuri says.

“No,” Viktor says. “ _ You’re _ going to do this.”

Yuuri huffs, the barest sigh. 

“I’m going to do this,” he whispers. 

“Yes,” Viktor answers. “You are.”

Yuuri’s not wearing gloves, and his hands are cold where they grip Viktor’s, the skin red and raw. His grip is tight. 

Yuuri grips tightly different than other people. He doesn’t grip tightly to keep Viktor close; he grips tightly to keep himself steady. 

Viktor thinks that he could spend his whole life held tightly to keep Yuuri steady. 

“I’m going to do this,” Yuuri repeats.

“And I’ll be right beside you,” Viktor replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess, I'm ending it here because--  
> What could I say about Barcelona that they show doesn't say itself?   
> talk to me on my tunglr (moosefeels)


End file.
